Mazzocco is a very funny and nice professor, and does a lot to help students succeed. Unlike much of the Economics department, he doesn't designate a certain amount of people to get a certain letter grade, so if the class performs well, the overall distribution is great. He only curves in your favor, and has continuously improved his exams to make them easier.

This fall (2018), he made all of his exams multiple-choice, and made them even easier by reducing the amount of choices after hearing feedback from the first exam. He also lets you use a double-sided cheat sheet that helps a lot. I would recommend filling it up with sample formulas and examples of how to solve the problems from the sample exams he gives you (especially because the sample exams are VERY VERY similar to the exams he gives in class).

The only problem that I have with this class is that sometimes, Mazzocco doesn't go into depth on how to actually solve the problems, but rather, just explains the theory and throws up some formulas. To deal with this, I would just be diligent about going to discussion and go over the practice exams.

He also posts his slides online, so lecture isn't mandatory, but you should still go to keep yourself accountable.

Grading is as follows:
Homework: 10% (graded for completeness)
Midterm 1 (Week 4): 30%
Midterm 2 (Week 9): 30%
Final: 30%

He lets you replace the lowest midterm score with the final if the final is higher than any of the midterms.

This class would’ve been more challenging if Mazzocco didn’t know what he was doing. Good thing he does.

You don’t really need a textbook for this class (and he tells you this on the first day) because his slides + your TA’s notes should be enough for you to understand the necessary concepts. I’d rather go to lectures instead of reading because I’m lazy, but you could easily self-study from the textbook and the materials online and you should be fine.

The tests are “fair” (leaning on easy) and he lets you write whatever you want on the front and back of the first page of the blue book. There aren’t any projects for this class.

Shoutout to my TA Domenico because I would’ve been lost this whole quarter without his helpful notes and review sessions.

Class is really easy so long as you study for the midterms and finals. Homeworks won't make sense until AFTER you hand them in.

If you just do the practice midterms and finals provided on CCLE with a methodical passion, you'll get a good grade.

Mazzocco is a funny guy. Really good professors. However, lectures are pretty much optional as he covers theoretical stuff for the most part in his slides, and the exams and homework as mathematical applications of this that you can easily look up.

I have sort of mixed feelings about this class. On one hand, Mazzocco was a bad lecturer. I often had difficulty paying attention during lecture, and his accent often made him hard to understand. He also struggled to gauge how difficult to make his exams - the averages on the first midterm and final were around or above 90. That being said, he definitely wanted to his students to succeed in the class and provided us with the resources we needed to prepare for the tests. He also was fair about final grades - he didn’t curve anyone down just because the class did well on his exams. Overall, I would take this class with Mazzocco again.

DO ALL THE PRACTICE EXAMS. I was really concerned about how I would do in Econ 11 because 1) I was told this was a difficult weeder class and 2) I got a C in Econ 1, making me think I wouldn't do well in this class. Thankfully, it actually went a lot better than expected. Mazzocco's lectures are very clear, just make sure you can pay attend through his accent and understand how to do problems through his somewhat messy handwriting on the lecture notes (which I often had trouble with). Overall, he seems to be a very caring professor, and is extremely fair on exams and his grading system. What really helped me get through this class was reading the lecture notes and the textbook (I did a lot of self-learning), and trying to do as much of the practice exams as possible, since they are EXTREMELY HELPFUL AND SIMILAR to what you'll see on the actual test. Work through the practice problems, use your TAs as a resource to explain problems you don't know how to solve, or, as what I often did, use YouTube! (That's how I often reviewed basic concepts and learned stuff like MRTS, calculating demand elasticities, etc). Econ 11 is NOT HARD - just put in the work, and you will see the results.

Great professor! Tests only what he teaches (textbook truly is optional, not an "optional unless you want an A"), pretty clear at delivering the content, and posts all the practice material you need (aka all past exams on CCLE). If you know the main concepts of the class, a B at the very least should be doable. However, since he has changed the test to be all multiple choice (as opposed to just 30-40% of it), averages have risen to 80-90%, so expect essentially no curve. Because of that, I would say know the details because that can be what differentiates the As and Bs since there's very little room for error.
Unorganized pointers:
- You need to remember almost no prior econ to do well
- Mass majority of the tests are calculation based
- Concepts are still important for that last 10-20% to push into the A range. You don't need to know the proofs for the formula, but the conditions for which they are true or the (VERY BASIC) intuition behind them will likely be tested
- Most tests had 2-3 questions on the minor details. This still makes up nearly 10% of the test. Don't study too hard for these - instead, just write down all the formulas (even if you think they're insignificant) on your cheat sheet. In my experience, you'll have plenty of time on the tests to play around with the formulas until something matches an answer.
- My main error was finishing too fast - try to stay as long as you can even after you finish to check your answers. Careless errors made up over half the points I lost, and with little to no curve, this can make or break your grade.

I love Professor Mazzocco! He designed the class to be as fair as possible, and after a long string of professors who didn't bother giving us that courtesy, it was like a breath of fresh air!
First, the tests are all multiple choice and very fair. They are very similar to past midterms, which he posts online for you to practice. You also get a cheat sheet, too, and the grading scale is flexible so that it can only help your grade. He also gives out free points, basically, in the form of homework problem sets that he grades very nicely as well.
My TA, Carlos, was also great. He was always making sure we were following his lecture and was all around a great guy. Professor Mazzocco does have a slight accent, but I thought that as professors went he was always kind and engaging.
Slides and notes are posted online, and the textbook is unnecessary, so if you're smart enough you could technically get away with never attending class. I wasn't smart enough, but I enjoyed lectures anyways.

I don't know why people warned me that econ 11 is very hard. Mazzocco made it the most comfortable class I have taken so far at UCLA. HIS TEST WAS VERY CLEAR. My family had a big crisis since Oct 7th, and I got depression during the quarter so that I almost did not study at all. Mazzocco was very helpful in providing us all the previous exams for practising, but I only practiced one or two of them due to my dizziness. I think I was lucky to score well on the test because 1/ TA provided a useful note weekly to do the homework; 2/ both TA note and homework are handy to get the concepts well; 3/ this course is all about calculus math ( even did not use the cheat sheet in the midterms).

Thanks to Prof. Mazzocco for making this class very easy.

Econ 11 is a pretty hard class. No way around it. Mazzocco does his best and in general is a nice guy and decent teacher, but if you aren't good at calculus like me this class will probably suck. His curve is generous which is good, but you will have to put in the time to understand the topics and figure out the problems if you want to get a grade above passing. The TA's for Econ usually aren't all that useful, so a lot of the learning in this class will come from sitting down and grinding through all the practice tests and extra problem sets he gives until it becomes automatic.

This class is going to be hard no matter who you take it with, so Mazzocco is probably one of the best people you can take it with. He curves very generously and gives you a ton of practice midterms and finals to study from that were usually relatively similar to the actual test. He's also pretty funny and a super nice guy overall, and his lectures were extremely clear. You have one problem set due a week, which I would definitely recommend actually doing to stay on top of the coursework. Overall, Mazzocco is your best bet to succeeding in this class!