Despite the mixed reviews about him, I thought he was a decent professor. He has an amazing grading policy, meaning you get whatever you deserve and he won't curve you down, he'll only curve up. So everyone benefits and no one has to compete. The only homework in the class is masteringphysics, which can be extremely annoying. He penalizes you on the multiple choice questions, so you have to be VERY careful with those.

As far as tests goes, that's where the problem lies. About half (and sometimes over half) of the questions are concept based. Which can be really bad if you're more of a math person. They're all short-answer. However, he'll sometimes give the class the choice to do multiple choice instead. HOWEVER, my silly class all decided to vote short answer. BIG MISTAKE UGH, I was never so frustrated in my life. Some of his short answers can be easy, some can be really hard/tricky. So it all depends on luck and what you happen to know/understand from the textbook. He gives you a huge study guide and sample questions before each test so that's helpful.

There are two midterms, each with 4 big questions. This means each question will have multiple parts. Two of them will have a few short answer questions. The other two will be workout problems with multiple parts, depending on the kind of problem.

Final was about 8 questions, but about half of it was short answer. And those were really tricky. Rest were workout.

Overall, I do not recommend taking physics with professor Ong unless you're good with concept questions. HIS BIGGEST FLAW IS HIS SO-SO TEACHING. He's not completely bad, but he's not good either. He doesn't give much practice problems in class, so everything is basically self-study. He likes to go off-topic sometimes, and he can be pretty UNCLEAR with some of the things he's talking about. If he was more of a straight-forward lecturer, then I think his tests wouldn't be so bad. That's my say about Ong. But if you enroll and all the other teachers are bad, then take Ong.

I had Ong for 6A and 6C. I must admit that ong's 6A class was much harder than his 6C class. The averages for the in 6A i think were 70 and 48. The averages for the two parts of the final were low 50's. For 6C the averages were significantly higher. However, Ong decided to not change his exams very much for 6A. I heard rumors in 6A that he didn't change his exams from previous classes at all. So if you had the past midterms and final you would have been guaranteed an easy A. So search and search for these at all costs. As for 6C the class itself was easier, the material a little more interesting. In fact the final wasn't all that difficult, but you had to be careful. I got below average on both midterms and average on the final. I ended up with a B- and am totally happy with that considering how poorly I did in bertello's 6B. I suck at physics, but it's doable. I'll give ong that much.

Ong was an awesome professor. His method and style in teaching clearly displayed his passion for the subject. At times, he would be helpful but then there were other times where he described equations or a certain formula as "cute" (which was a tad-bit annoying in my book haha). Sometimes I would go to lecture and sit down and barely absorb everything; however, after reading the book-- things tended to connect a little better.
His tests were fair (material wise) but were very tricky at times.
His grading scale was amazing. I managed to get a B. from scoring a little below average for both midterms and average for the final--nothing short of a miracle haha.
Anyhow, take this professor if you want to have a fun time :[.

I love professor Ong. His tests were very fair and he lets you used 3 note cards (1 for each midterm) or a piece of 8.5x11 front and back for the final, which is way more than enough you need to get a good grade in the class.
He was very into his lectures and kept the material interesting. He did a lot of demos for the class and at the beginning of every lecture he would go over what we did last time which was really helpful. My recommendation: take Ong if you can, focus on homework and concepts he is interested in when he lectures.

I dont know what the previous poster is talking about. The physics series was almost doomed for me until I got this professor. I actually attend class now because I just like his lectures. Boring? He tries to apply physics concepts to everyday life all of the time. One day, he decided to bring in liquid helium to just freeze fruits and other objects and smash them. His tests, at least in my opinion, are on the border of fair and easy. Im actually surprised that our average for the second midterm was a 69. Just so everyone knows. I'm not good at physics, never have and never will be, but this professor ALMOST reignited my interest in the subject.

Taking him now. Either hes extremely boring or its the whole physics class in general. Nonetheless, i would prefer this guy over hwang just because he speaks english but if he were compared to someone like professor Nassar, id offer my limbs to take nassar over this guy. Anyhow, take the class if you want to ruin your social life. this class sucks but this teacher is by far the most "sucky" of them all!

He is a pretty good professor in the sense that he tries to get his students to understand the physics concepts. Unlike most physics professors, whose midterms and finals involved almost all problem solving, Ong has both problem solving and a section that asks for short answers to concepts. That means to do well in the class, you need to understand to the concepts he teaches in a very conceptual manner. If you can solve the homework assignments and can understand the concept questions in the back of the book, you'll be alright.
One weakness I noticed is that he assigns homework problems before he goes over the topics in class. This ends up making the problems harder than they really are.

Professor Ong is the best professor I have ever had the pleasure of learning from at UCLA. He teaches a class the way it should be taught. Everybody has their say in the homeworks, due dates, time for reviews. All the information on the exams are covered in lecture. His lectures are inspiring, for those that care to listen, touching on information that he views as important as opposed to slamming you with way to much to cram before an exam. He has a lot of trust in his students, something not very many professors do any more. I say all of this even though I didn't get an A in his class.

If I get anything across let it be that if you have the opportunity, "Take Professor Ong!!!"