Bill (he goes by this) is a pretty good lecturer. He is extremely eloquent but not verbose. The way he explained the content was always clear. However, the class was just not very interesting IMO, which I don't think is Bill's fault. I think it's just the nature of the class. There were only three assignments–midterm, essay, final–that were all equal in weight. The exams were composed of 10 MC, 5 short answer, and 3 long answer questions. These were fairly easy considering they were open-note and very straightforward (i.e. What is the grue problem?). The essay was a bit tough for me. We had to respond to 1 of 4 prompts in a 4-6 page essay. Most of the prompts required you to argue for/against the case of a certain theory or propose a revision that would make the theory better, while one basically asked you to define a specific philosophical puzzle and explain its significance. I chose the latter because 1) I found the puzzle (grue problem) interesting and 2) part of the puzzle's significance was explicitly stated in lecture. The toughest part was trying the reach 4 pages since the puzzle description and the puzzle's significance were fairly straightforward. I felt like I was just repeating myself over and over (and other students seemed to share this sentiment).

Overall, I don't think you have to put in a lot of effort for an A. However, if you don't do too well on the midterm or you're just generally concerned about your grade, Bill will probably consider adding an extra credit assignment for the entire class if you bring it up. For my class, I believe it was a 2-page essay that applied the course content to contemporary issues. This essay could add (at most) 10 points to your lowest assignment grade.

Good luck!