I technically didn't need to take this class since I got a 5 on AP Calc, but I had self-studied for the test in like 4 days and felt like I didn't really know the material, so I thought it would be better to take this class so that I'm not lost in Math 31B. A lot of people told me that it would be a waste of time, but I'm glad I didn't listen to them. I found this class very valuable and helpful. Conley gave engaging lectures and he explained the concepts very clearly and did a lot of examples. He went above and beyond, as he held 4-5 hour long review sessions before each exam just to help us out. I thought the review sessions were very helpful; before each exam, I only watched the recorded review session and nothing else, and was able to get 100 on all the tests. So even if you feel comfortable with the material, I'd recommend the review sessions, as the examples he goes over are very similar to the material on the actual tests. He also gave us optional practice tests before each test.

As for participation, lecture attendance isn't mandatory but discussion attendance is. However, attending discussion only accounts for 5% of your grade. During each discussion, there is a worksheet to do. The worksheets took me about 40-60 minutes each. The lowest one gets dropped. Worksheets comprise 10% of the grade, and the lowest two are dropped. I personally found the worksheets to be helpful.

There is also homework on Achieve about once a week. One thing I found a bit annoying was that the homework was due a different day each week; it would have been nicer to have a constant day/time it was due. The homework problems are much harder than what is covered in class IMO, but we get unlimited attempts and a wrong attempt doesn't really decrease your grade a lot, so it's overall not that hard to do well on the homework, especially if you use GroupMe. The lowest homework gets dropped. Each homework usually took me about 2 hours, but the harder ones took me 3-4. The homeworks are 15% of the grade total. There was a homework due on finals week which was really not cool, but I emailed Conley for an extension and he allowed it.

The exams were alright; they weren't as hard as the homework. But for us they were 24 hour online open-note tests, so I'm pretty sure they'd be harder in person.

There are two schemes for grading. In the first, the two midterms are 20% each and the final is 30%. In the second, the highest of the two midterms is 30% (the lower is 0%) and the final is 40%. This means that if you do really poorly on one of the midterms, you can still get a good grade.