BIOL 2020

kopeny is a very bad lecturer and the exam questions tested more my ability to figure him out instead of my knowledge of the material.

Hard class if you don't want to read the text book

Kopeny is really disorganized during lecture and can't communicate his thoughts clearly with the class. He posts up "preview slides" the day before, which he sometimes changes last minute. There were only about 2 or 3 times where he actually got through all the slides for the day's lecture. I would usually have to cut out close to half of the slides to save them for the next day's lecture, but then he would change the slide content/order again so I had to waste ink to print them out again. He was also very rude to me the one time I went to office hours to argue a test question and cut me off a lot. That being said, we had 5 exams (8%, 3x22%, and a final worth 26%). I agree with everybody here, the tests are poorly worded, but as the semester goes along you get a better idea of what he's looking for so it should become easier to answer his questions. As far as curving his target average for the exams is an 81, so if the class average falls below that he'll curve up, but he won't curve you're final grade. A 92 or above is a guaranteed A in this class, and he says sometimes he'll bring it down to a 91 or so.

Honestly a pretty hard class, but it is a sort of pre-med weed out.

I barely went to lecture the entire semester and just read the textbook and looked at the powerpoints he posted online. Passed the class with a solid B.

Honestly, not a very good class. Professor Kopeny is a really nice guy, and if you go to his office hours he is helpful. However his lectures were just bad. Reads off his slides and doesn't go very deep into the material. The only helpful part about the lectures and the slides is if you use them right, they tell you exactly what to study for his exams. If he didn't mention it in class, isn't on the slides, or he didn't tell you to read it in the book, it won't be on the test. He is fair. But don't expect to feel excited about the material.

Great professor but it's hard to pay attention because he basically talks for 50 minutes without stop. I'd say around 20% of the questions on his tests could have 2 answers (both which could be right) and it's very annoying. You could skip all the lectures and get an A since he doesn't use iClickers as part of your grade.

It's just basic bio, not much to state outside the obvious. Probably repetitive material for most students who took bio courses in high school, nothing outstanding. Do the work and you'll get a good grade

This class is not too hard, but make sure you know the material really well because Kopeny likes to be tricky on exams. His lectures are really boring and he basically reads off slides so be prepared to be sleepy in class.

Kopeny is horribly boring lecturer. He likes to go on long tangents that are questionable in their relevance. Read the book and you will do fine on the midterms (of which there are 6, including the "final"). He does know what he's talking about though, and is a nice person, just very dull.