BIOL 2200

Imagine this scenario--it's your first day of kindergarten. You're so excited to learn more about the world, make new friends, and have the time of your life. You walk into your little classroom. Your teacher reads everybody a very cute story book about a tree with very easy words and big pictures, so that you understand what's going on. You feel so proud of what you've learned today and think that kindergarten will be no problem for you. After a week full of those easy story books read by your teacher, the big day FINALLY comes--your kindergarten teacher passes out a test that's supposed to cover the material from the story books. You open the test, feeling greatly prepared... only to fall off your seat with a double flip from the TERRIBLE word choice and sentence structures that even Shakespeare can't backhand, and an obscure syntax both the questions and answers were written in. THIS is what Manson's class felt like to me. Lectures were terribly elementary and covered the surface of something core-related that Manson put on exams. In other words, you can learn how to do 1+3x2+5 in class. Easy, right? Manson then puts down 1+3x(2+5) on the exam. You don't know how to work PEMDAS (or BEDMAS in Canadian, in honor of this irrelevant and highly nonfunctional professor) because the lecture never covered it in detail. But with Manson's justification of the exams being "application-based," this is how you will be tested in the course. Highly unfair and more concentrated on how good your improvisation/test taking skills are, rather than pure biological knowledge. About content: Manson has a kink for plants as much as Donald Trump loves using twitter instead of being an actual president; you'll be fascinated by how this professor knows so much about how plants have sex but don't know a single detail about how humans excrete urine. And as for lab, your grade is ENTIRELY jeopardized on who your TA is. If it's a graduate student, it's likely that lab will be a tumultuous time for you as they grade assignments with a terribly narrow mind and wants to keep you for the full 2.5 hour block of lab. Sit next to someone that doesn't smell for your own sanity. Undergraduate TA's vary for every section, but they seem to be less extreme than graduate TA's. Grades are not curved with the exception of a few "bonus point" opportunities that aren't even greater than 0.5%. Exams seemed to decrease in difficulty over time, as the final had the highest average score. If you're taking this class after Kittlesen, you'll likely notice that it's hard to stay awake in class as Manson cannot engage her students in learning and her lectures are rather dull. If you REALLY love plants, this may not be that bad for you--for everyone else, I wish you the best of luck.

As someone who DIDN'T get an A in this class (got an A-), I have compiled a list of tips and my down falls (obviously dont do what I did on my downfalls).

Tip:

1. Read the textbook reading before lecture, seriously. I recommend right before lecture since the information is fresh and lecture will make a lot more sense. The textbook also has a lot of excess information, but don't worry about it. If it's too confusing, Manson would probably either not cover it in class, therefore it wont be on the exam OR she goes over it and you understand it.

2. Quizlet your Mastering Bio. No it's not an honor offense. Even if you know the answer, double check so you can get a 100% (or atleast close to it) on every assignment. This will help you on your final grade as it is worth 10% of your final grade. She also releases a final extra credit Mastering if you miss one.

3. Go to lecture. Even if the powerpoints are very straight forward, you can still get in some participation points AND it is very helpful as some postlab questions are directly from lecture.

4. Don't take Thursday 5:30 pm labs as exams are always on Friday and those lab sessions are unnecessarily stressful because you'd rather be studying for the exam than be in lab.

5. Any post-lab question that seems abstract of difficult, ask your TA about them. They will more than likely give you hints. It is also crucial you know the general ideas of each question as they may show up on the exam.

6. In lab sometimes you'll have to carry your team mates on your back and sometimes thats for the whole semester. While this is frustrating, know that you will be learning more than them and the fact that you have to explain to them your answers multiple times will make you understand it more.

EXAM STUDY TIPS (in order of importance):

1. Make sure you've gone to lecture and did all the textbook readings BEFORE lecture.

2. GO THROUGH THE POWERPOINTS AND MEMORIZE EVERYTHING. Everything on the exam will be on the powerpoints. That's how I ended up getting 95s on exams on the second half of the semester (I wish I knew earlier). THEN CONNECT THEM TOGETHER. I recommend sitting down 3 days ahead and study for memorization, then 2 days ahead start connecting the ideas on the powerpoint since her exam mostly application and some information.

My Down Falls:

1. Think "Oh, if I do bad on this one, the rest will even it out. I'll study more on the next one." DONT. DO. THAT. Not only will that ruin your chances of getting an A, you will also be very disappointed in yourself when you show up to the exam and know you know the answer but can't answer it because you didn't study. There are only 4 exams in total, so study for all of them.

2. Not go to office hours.

I hope this is helpful!

TL;DR: Read the textbook before lecture. Pay attention in lecture. Quizlet your HW. Memorize powerpoints for exams.

I hated Manson. I thought she was super disorganized and didn't have a full grasp on the material she was teaching. Reading the textbook is pointless, just stick to knowing everything from the lecture slides. She teaches like she's an elementary school teacher and it's ineffective. Make sure to take notes on things she says that may not be a part of her lecture notes because it may be on the exam. She gets frustrated with her students easily and I hated going to her office hours. Her exams are ridiculous in the sense that the wording sucks. There were so many questions she had to throw out or give points for multiple answers because of how ambiguous her questions are worded. The material isn't hard, just really boring until the last unit.

My major piece of advice is don’t let this course discourage you from being a bio major!!! I took this class and absolutely hated it that I started to reconsider my decision to be a bio major because I couldn’t imagine taking anymore courses that might be as painfully boring as this one. The material is dry and Manson doesn’t do much to make it interesting and assigns large readings where 70% if the information is useless knowledge that you won’t be tested on. A good way to approach her class is to take lecture notes ever lecture bc the slides she posts on collab are only half filled out, and then read the textbook only if you can find a section that matches the topic of the slides. This way you don’t waste time reading about phyla or other subjects that you don’t need to know about. Intro bio is important and you’ll have to suffer through but at least the material you learn becomes much more interesting in upper level biology classes.

If you love bio and are willing to put in the time, this is an absolutely amazing course. Professor Manson is really engaging, and I found her lectures to be a lot of fun. Some say her tests are impossible, but I found that they were definitely challenging, but very much doable if you really understood the material that had been covered. Knowing definitions is great but it won't help you on the exam unless you actually understand what that definition means, and how it can be applied to real world examples. As others have mentioned the assigned reading isn't really necessary to do well in this class (with some exceptions), but lecture attendance is an absolute must. I got an A on the (non-cumulative) final and I didn't read the textbook once during that last section of the course. Just study hard, and use the clicker questions and practice exams to your advantage, the exam questions are fair and reflective of the ones you've already seen. If you love ecology and evolution I can promise you you'll love this course. Plus, Professor Manson is so great that I enrolled in her class this semester just because I saw she was teaching it!

If you need to take 2200 for a requirement, be it pre-health or gen ed, you'll have to take it with Manson. In order to boost your overall grade, you're going to have to get a 100% on the Mastering Biology hw, as the homework is the only part of your overall grade that is fully in your control (and is worth 10%). The lab grading is harsher in this portion of intro bio than with Kittlesen, so make sure that you really take your time on pre-labs and post-labs and try to get as many 5/5 on pre-labs as you can in case your TA grades post labs harshly. Also, try to attend lecture as much as possible so that you can maximize your clicker credit, which could swing you from a B to a B+ or an A- to an A if you're lucky. As for tests, it took me a really long time to figure out how to study for them. Just reading the textbook, especially as the course progresses, can become very time consuming as she expects you to know most of the details she covers in lecture; unfortunately, reading the textbook is the only way to learn the material to the level of detail Manson expects you to know. Her lecture notes are not nearly enough to know to do well on the exam. I would record her lectures and go through the PPTs while listening to them just so that I could know what she was discussing in lecture and figure out which areas she would spend more time on; I would then take detailed notes on that section of the textbook. The results were an A and an A+ on her third and fourth exams. Overall, her course is difficult, but once you figure out how you learn the material best and what Manson expects you to know for a particular unit, you're pretty much good to go.

Manson is tough, and Biology 2200 is not the most exciting subject, but this class still has some benefits. I found the last unit (about function and form rather than evolution) incredibly fascinating while most of the TAs that I dealt with were very friendly and positive. I've also decided to compile how to make an A in this class. First, do the reading. Many Premed and General Biology students attempt to avoid reading within a class, but this is not a good idea in regards to Biology 2200. The reading helps flesh out details that Manson can sometimes scale over her powerpoints, which are very short on information. You SHOULD, however, utilize these powerpoints to understand the primary material of the course and recognize the main ideas this course presents. Second, make sure you get this best grade you can on homework and labs. These are blessings unlike other curriculum within Premed courses where you exclusively have tests. With two to four minds on one assignment in the lab, your crew should consistently be able to get 90s or above on lab. The homework is easy, and in the book, it often took me barely thirty minutes to get the homework done. Third, prepare for the test. They are challenging; you need to have an outline of materials at least one week before the test is ready if you are shooting for an A. She does not try to trick you, but her questions are pretty tricky to get to the bottom to usually. At times I would make high As and other times I barely made a B, but I learned how to study for her test (comparing and contrasting terms). The final had the highest average, it was much more straight-forward than the other tests and helped me end up with an A overall in the class. Difficult and time-consuming, but doable as well... a small challenge compared to the beast of Organic Chemistry which waits around the corner.

This was a tough, but very doable course. Odds are if you are not taking this course as an elective, but rather a requirement and doing well is important. You also don't really have a choice for professors, so I will make this review in terms of the course rather than the professor.

I will end the course with either an A or A+ and I have compiled a list of things that I felt were important for my success in this course.
First, homework is 10% of your grade and online on mastering biology. These are guaranteed points so it is important to check your answers with quizlet or a friend in order to make sure you get a 100%.
Second, labs are worth 20%. Before each lab there is a prelab quiz online that is worth 5 points. You should also check with others and gurantee a 100%. For the post labs, the grading was pretty harsh no partial credit in my case, but this will depend on your TA. To do well, make sure to look for the answers for each of the questions in the lab manual or in your lecture notes as you can copy many of them word for word. Also, ask your TA questions if you are unsure about the answer and make sure you are answering the question correctly. I started the year with 80's and 90's on the first 3 post labs but then was able to get a 100% on the last 9 with these tips.
Third, the bulk of your biology grade will be the 4 exams at 70%. These consist of 40 tricky multiple choice questions, but I found that by adjusting how I prepared, I was able to perform extremely well on them the second half of the semester. The content itself often is not heavy, but the questions are often application based and require a deeper level of thinking. To prepare, I found the textbook reading is NOT needed, and I would recommend not doing it. The textbook often covers more concepts or concepts into more detail than necessary for the exams. Every concept on the exam is covered in Manson's lectures (often word for word from her slides), therefore you should use the lectures to prepare for the exams. For note taking, Manson uploads blank copies of her powerpoints before class. Download them and take notes on the slides, there are often visuals/phylogenetics trees, that are not only helpful for understanding the material but can make their way onto exams as well. Copy down every word on Manson's lecture slides, and copy down any iClicker questions she puts up on the board as well. I found it extremely helpful to review the material of the previous lecture between lectures. You should go over this material once or twice so that you understand it and begin to memorize it. This will not only help you get the review iClicker questions correct at the start of each lecture, but it will also make studying for each exam a bit easier. Ideally, before each exam, you will want to have memorized and understood every word/concept on her slides. I followed this study routine every week up until the week of the exam. Then on the Monday and Tuesday of the week of the exam, I would set aside an hour or two go through all the previous slides once just to get them back in my mind. On Wednesday and Thursday, I would then spend two to three hours again going through slides and going through all the mastering biology homework questions for the exam. These questions are good practice, and I found that usually 2-3 of them make there way on to the exam. On Thursday night I would also take the practice test, and I would go through the slides once more with a group of friends, discussing anything that was not clear, integrating clicker and mastering bio questions as practice. On the day of the exam, the questions are worded very precisely, and therefore you must be focused, reading every word of question and answer choices. These questions also may also take a decent amount of thinking, but you have plenty of time (2 hours) so you should take your time.
Using these tips I was able to get a 93, 85, 100, and 98 on the exams. (I had 4 exams the week of exam 2, and the exam itself was not written the best in my opinion).

Overall this course was tough but doable. My biggest tips would be to review material from each previous lecture every week, to secure any "guaranteed" points, and to remain focused during exams.

I thought this class was easier than Kittlesen's Biol 2100 class but everyone is different. I actually enjoyed both classes. The review underneath mine is really good and should provide you tips on how to do as well as possible in this class. I did the textbook reading for the first two exams and didn't do them for the last two exams and actually did slightly better on the last two. There's a lot of superfluous information in the textbook that won't show up on the exam. Just actively pay attention in lecture and make sure to take diligent notes and review them as much as possible. At the end of the day, pre-health students at UVA are lucky to have two excellent intro bio professors in both Kittlesen and Manson.

I've always been really interested in biology, but it didn't fully click for me until I took this class. Jessamyn teaches straight from the book (for those of you who are avid skippers), but she only really tests on stuff she talks about in lecture (if you hate reading the book; plus, she gives up to 1.5% extra credit, tacked onto your final grade, if you answer all the clicker questions). I read the entire textbook, but this is definitely not a requirement for the class. Her green pants are super fun, and I found the material much more relevant/easy to understand than BIOL2100 stuff (especially the last topic, form and function (basically anatomy), even though it can get a little tedious). The lab was also a lot more chill than last semester, it obviously depends on your TA (shoutout Erin lol). I found that I actually got a lot out of the dissections (have been doing them since 7th grade and there was never really a point to them, but they were super valuable) at the end of the semester, as they were closely related to lecture material and even helped deepen my understanding of how organ systems are arranged & function. Another review said to Quizlet all of your MasteringBio and I would have to agree. If I did that, I probably would've gotten an A in the class (ended with an A-). Definitely log onto Mastering frequently because she's bad at reminding the class when one's due/posting them ahead of time, but she's good at reminding you of basically everything else. She's super cute, approachable, accommodating, and an ABSOLUTE nerd for plants so don't be scared to go to her office hours as needed!:) Also: ALWAYS do the exam wrappers when she offers them, they're SO helpful and boost your grade.