Lavelle provides tons of resources to help students who need extra help, such as office hours, UA sessions, step-up sessions, and a lot more. You can tell he really wants his students to succeed and is always willing to help. The midterms and final weren't too difficult, but the exams do require a lot of studying at times. If you utilize the aforementioned resources and the textbook problems, then you should do perfectly fine.

On the online format, the class wasn't too bad. If you're willing to do the work and spend time to understand the material, a good grade should be obtainable. Especially if you took AP Chem, since the content is essentially the same. I failed the AP test, but I still found this class not too difficult content wise.
You unfortunately have to purchase the textbook in order to have access to homework problems, but the textbook is extremely helpful.
There's a bunch of office hours and "step up sessions" with people who previously took the class that go over problems that are very helpful it you're confused with the material.
I found Lavelle's lectures helpful, but he does talk pretty slowly. All the lectures are prerecorded, so this is a nonissue as you can just speed the video up.
Chemistry Community is a forum (that you need to post in 5 times a week) and is helpful if you're confused on a problem or content. There always seemed to be people on there answering questions.
If you're confused on the content, there's resources to help you. You just have to be willing to do the work.

If you have the option avoid this class at all costs. I want to say that I have never felt the need to write a bad review for a professor, not even during the abhorred 7 series, but this is by far the worst class I've ever taken at UCLA. Out of all the stem classes I've taken, the worst I've done is an A-. With Lavelle, I had to take this class P/NP because I was going to receive somewhere in the C range. Most professors have approached online learning with an open mind and understand that we are all adjusting to an educational environment that no one expected, professor Lavelle has approached this in the worst way possible. All of his lectures are recorded so you cant go to ask questions, yet every time his lectures are still well over the 50 minutes that all of us signed up for. You end up watching probably 7 extra lectures by the end of the quarter based on how much time he goes over every lecture. Instead of teaching you how to solve the problems on his tests, he rambles on about things he thinks are cool in his lectures. The only thing he seems to care about is his degrees and his chemistry community website. His tests online are all multiple choice, and the midterms were 12-16 questions. So if you get one question wrong, you're already looking at a serious drop in points. For those who are good at multiple-choice, maybe this works well for you. I personally think it's cruel and unusual to give a multiple-choice chemistry exam with almost no partial credit (even though he says there is). I have never done worse in a course at UCLA or in my life than I did in Lavelles 14a, and I blame this entirely on his grading and testing choices. If you have the option, do not take this class with him.

Go to UA sessions. My god, they saved my life. I was terrified of this class because I wasn’t great at chemistry in high school, but after attending about 3 sessions per week (and a lot more before exams) and doing every textbook problem, I felt very prepared. The midterms are not too hard, but honestly I was most frustrated with the fact that not everything we learned was on the exam, given how large of a percentage the exams are of your grade. It just didn’t feel representative, with some people getting lucky with easier topics and others left with hard ones. The final was especially hard but I enjoyed the difficulty as it felt like it was actually testing my knowledge and application. Lavelle was so nice and decided to give us 10 bonus points because it was so difficult. The workload really isn’t too bad, but his lectures aren’t the most engaging or helpful. Discussion was also kind of pointless. Overall, go to UA sessions!!!

Dr. Lavelle has the best resources for you to succeed and he will tell you often about them. If you utilize these resources ( I found the UA sessions most helpful ), you’ll get a decent grade. It’s difficult to get an A in this class as you need basically a raw score of 465/500 so every point counts.

HW was around 15-30 questions on a website Sapling that we paid for and it was due every 2 weeks. You have to get a cumulative 50 posts in the discussion before the quarter ends. Also, do the optional problems from the Outlines Lavelle gives out. He often puts a lot of the textbook problems in his exams.

Lavelle does bump grades up at the end of the quarter but it’s not really like a curve. If your close to the next grade, he’ll silently help you I think. And he’s more generous /forgiving in bumping your grade if you have a lower score.

[During Covid, so distance learning]

Great class. Superb teacher.
I took AP Chem and the AP Test. The course mostly felt like review with a few exceptions, but those few topics were very digestible and easy to understand with how Lavelle taught it. He likes to teach the necessary foundations for each new topic.

Comments on HW:
We had SAPLING HW online, and we got infinite attempts to get the correct answer. Very small amount assigned too. (this one is graded)
We had book "HW" (it wasn't checked or graded). Highly recommend doing these, understanding them, and how to arrive at the answers; it might come in handy :)

Comments on the Midterm and Final:
2 Midterms:
The format was multiple choice and proctored under Zoom by your TA and through a LockDown Browser (not sure about international students; I'm sure accommodations were made for them). Fair time limit.

Final:
Same format as previous midterms. I heard it was a time crunch for some, but I thought it was fair.

I think this class is a hit or miss. If you have taken AP Chem or some other advanced chem class before and are familiar with those concepts, this class will more than likely be a review for you. Although Lavelle says that you don't need AP chem for his class, having that chem knowledge definitely helps because he goes at a pretty fast pace. He clearly states what he is going to test for on his tests in his syllabus/outlines. He records his lectures and puts them on CCLE, which is a godsend because you can watch them at 2x speed (he talks nice and slow in a way that will lull you to sleep like a kind grandpa). Lavelle seems like a really nice guy that truly wants all of his students to succeed. He offers a lot of resources for students, such as Zoom Sessions with UA's (Undergraduate Assistant that has taken 14A/B), chemistry community (his online forum where you can ask questions), and sapling.

HOW TO DO WELL IN THIS CLASS:

- DO THE HOMEWORK BOOK PROBLEMS. Not just the Sapling homework he assigns every week, but the book problems he mentions on his syllabus. These book problems aren't collected for points or anything, but he pulls questions from the book directly and puts them on his test. He is very upfront about this as well as he explicitly mentions that he puts hw problems on his tests.

- GO TO 1 OR 2 UA WORKSHOPS A WEEK. A lot of UA's hold review workshops for the week of material that Lavelle covers and some of them have old tests that they also go over. Every quarter there is usually 1 or 2 UA's that hold kickass review sessions. For me, it was Matthew Tran and Justin Sarquiz, who are the only reason I did well in this class.

- WRITE DOWN SPECIFIC BIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS HE TALKS ABOUT IN LECTURE. For instance, he talks about acid rain in the acid/base unit and G-C bonds pair in DNA during that intermolecular bonds unit. He occasionally sprinkles in questions about these concepts in his tests.

Overall, I'd say this class is fair. Lavelle is a good lecturer and he does not intentionally want to trick anyone into getting a bad grade. He doesn't grade on a curve or any of that bs. However many points you earn divided by the points possible is your grade for the class. Stay on top of the book problems and you are golden.

Prefacing this by saying I took this course as a completely online class! Lavelle set it up as asynchronous and BruinCasted all the lectures. We had 2 midterms (not cumulative) and one final (cumulative) that were all online and made up the bulk of our grade.

Don’t be afraid of this class! I had only taken 10th grade level chemistry before this (no AP like many did) and ended up w/ a good grade! I did well on the tests, but I do think my quarter was a bit easier than past ones because the tests were online, multiple choice, and he was more lenient w/ grading b/c of online school, so take my grade w/ a grain of salt. He also gives a little padding to your grade by giving out 50 points just for posting on Chem Community, which is annoying busywork, but easy points. The workload is light and easy to keep track of
.
I heard he changes around the structure of his grading every year or so, but generally it didn’t feel like a bad weeder course (but I also didn’t have much contact w/ my hundreds of classmates as I was in online school). Participation also wasn’t necessary even in discussion (my TA was nice)

Honestly, Dr. Lavelle gets a bad rap. I'm not sure why, but upperclassmen and fellow incoming freshmen alike told me I would regret taking his class. I will not deny, this class has a LOT of content packed within 10 weeks, and if you haven't taken any chemistry throughout high school, you will have a tough time. Having taken AP Chem before coming into this course, I felt as though it was manageable. Dr. Lavelle is incredibly sweet, and is a great lecturer. He is so clear when explaining concepts, and everything he teaches builds off of each other to make for a very cohesive course. This course, having taken it asynchronously, requires a ton of initiative and self motivation. It's not enough to just memorize the content for exams, you HAVE TO thoroughly understand each concept and connect concepts to different scenarios, especially biological ones. PAY ATTENTION when Dr. Lavelle mentions any specific biological scenario during lecture, he loves throwing those on exams. In regards to his exams, they are quite difficult. To prepare for them, don't just spend time going to TA or UA review sessions before Week 10. Do every single textbook problem, and make sure you understand each one and not just memorizing the answers. Take practice finals! Those are soo helpful for this course. Dr. Lavelle has a plethora of resources available for students, from Chemistry Community to recorded lectures to TA/UA synchronous study sessions to even separate synchronous discussions that Lavelle holds himself. He genuinely wants to see everybody succeed, but this is a difficult class nonetheless. But don't be intimidated by him--if you put in the effort you will definitely be fine.

Dr. Lavelle was especially understanding this quarter in terms of grades. He also provides a LOT of resources for us to succeed in his class. His lectures ran a little long sometimes, but I'd say that's the only drawback to being in his class virtually. He's a pretty great professor overall.