Professor Samani is by far one of the most polarizing professors I've had at UCLA. While the other review from March 30, 2023 covers it well, I'd still like to add my own opinion to help future 5B students. TLDR: 5B is just difficult, and there's no way around it lol.
I want to start with how kind and engaging Samani is. It is clear he has a genuine passion for physics and in all of his lectures he is organized, concise and gives you a reason to pay attention. He gets a bonus for really acknowledging that the class is for life science majors and catering his lectures towards topics relevant to us like blood pressure, audiology, optometry, etc. and even taking the time to learn concepts from biology on his own to teach us. It's in this way that I loved Samani as a professor and person.
However, he is one of those professors passionate about education and researches the best way to teach a class, hence why he has a vastly different class structure than other physics professors: mandatory lecture attendance (you can miss 3), mandatory discussion (can also miss 3), weekly quizzes instead of 2 midterms, and a cumulative final exam with no equation sheet. He explains this structure on the first day and theoretically it makes sense. Lectures are very important for learning material, discussions allow you to practice the way he'll ask questions, weekly quizzes means lower stakes and encourages long term retention, and hopefully that means you'd be more ready for the final compared to a standard physics class.
While theoretically this makes sense, I think Samani just doesn't take into account that we have to take other classes (likely more important than physics). The gripe I had with this class structure is that it was very flipped classroom heavy. Firstly, with quizzes every Monday, it meant we only had 2 lectures per week to learn the week's material and he would assign supplementary textbook readings and old lectures that often would've taken 5+ hours if I actually did them lol. This meant there'd be equations in his "need to know" equation sheet that are foreign to me because they were only in the book, not his lecture. This made studying for the quizzes annoying because you'd have to wait until Fridays to start studying, but if you don't do the supplementary things, you'd have to spend the weekend learning it (I recommend doing the optional Mastering Physics to do this) on top of doing his practice quizzes and memorizing that week's equations.
The quizzes were slightly annoying to deal with but on top of the stress of 2-3 other classes, it definitely stressed me out. While the quizzes are fair, by no means were they easy, and almost packed a punch like a midterm would, which made me feel like I had the stress of a midterm every Monday. The way I described preparing for the quizzes made them pretty doable though. The potential saving grace for this class is having 3 of the 7 quizzes be group quizzes (granted you have a good group) but it can also make things a lot worse. Overall, the quizzes are lower stakes in terms of its effect on your overall grade, but the stress makes them feel higher stakes if that makes sense.
Finally, his final. Samani was great because for week 10, he spent it teaching us how to review for his final and applied it to the actual material, which did shave off some studying. Honestly, the studying for it really isn't that bad if you memorized the equations, knew how to apply them doing the practice quizzes and Mastering Physics, and did well on the quizzes. The thing about Samani is that he is so good at his subject, he has almost mastered the art of making you apply your knowledge to scenarios you've never seen before. His final was completely fair and doable given the 3 hours, but it was one that made me really have to dig deep conceptually instead of just plugging and chugging. My only advice for the final is to utilize his study strategy (analyzing the concepts numerically with equations, with drawings/diagrams, and through words) to get those concepts down, because that's the way the whole exam was.
Despite it all, I would still recommend Samani for 5B. Based off of the complains I've heard about the other 5B professors, all I could conclude was that the 5B material is just very difficult, and there isn't a perfect professor who has easy exams, is a good lecturer, etc. What Samani does offer is engaging lectures, teaches you topics actually applicable to things like the MCAT, and at the very least teaches you discipline for 10 weeks.

This class, in regard to my opinion of it at least, was total whiplash. I feel that even after the final, this class was overall pretty good. I'm going to go over each part of the class since my experience in each was very distinctly different.

First, the lectures. Honestly, Samani has some pretty spectacular lectures, all of which got me very interested in the subject. Often times, professors fail to apply the concepts taught in class to practical real life applications (even in physics, which should be the easiest to apply to real life). Samani takes a fat W here, his lectures are engaging and the way he peaks student interest with a concept's application before going into the lecture keeps students very engaged. These lectures are mandatory (you can miss 3), but for good reason, they are instrumental for introducing you to the topics this class covers and helpful in ensuring you begin practicing with a good baseline understanding. These are 9/10 lectures.

Second is Samani both as a person and as a professor. You can tell that this man loves physics and wants students to learn. He ensures you will walk out of this class with a strong understanding of both the concepts and the different ways to apply said concepts. He is very open to feedback, and has made multiple changes to the course based on feedback from students. When students were confused during lecture, Samani made sure to announce clarifications. He often times returns points when you request a regrade as long as your reasoning is valid. He is without a doubt the professor most open to feedback. 10/10 in this aspect. Despite his class being difficult, he never makes you feel stupid.

Third, are the quizzes. This quarter, Samani replaced the 2 midterm structure with 7 quizzes on every non holiday Monday (starting Monday, Week 3). 4 were individual quizzes, 3 were group quizzes. This is where my opinion becomes slightly mixed. I think that overall, his individual quizzes were fair, and as long as you did the practice tests and went to lecture, these quizzes should be pretty straightforward. You will be asked to derive equations on the spot, so ensure your algebra is solid (mine isn't, so I took some Ls on derivation questions). I personally did not read the textbook or do mastering physics questions, and I still did ok on the quizzes. Try to study throughout the week, it should take at max around and hr to 2 hrs to adequately prepare for the quizzes. Now the group quizzes were harder, understandable considering that you get to work with a group of 3 others to finish them. You have 20 minutes to work individually, then 30 minutes to work on and turn in 1 group packet. This is where the quizzes become a slight game of chance. If your group is goated, you should be fine. If you are stuck with a group that has no clue what they are doing, you will suffer. The latter unfortunately, happened to me, and while we still did ok, it certainly felt like a solo effort. Samani usually made the harder exams group quizzes, which is understandable, but painful when you really don't have a group to work with. I understand that random groups are the most fair, but personally, this system feels unfair to those who put in effort but are stuck with groups that refuse to put in effort. I have a few suggestions here, either remove group quizzes entirely or allow for students to submit individual quizzes but still have the option to collaborate. That way, students that do not want to collaborate, don't have to, and student who do want to collaborate have that option. Quizzes would be a 7/10, but group quizzes lower them to a 6/10

Lastly, the final. I did not listen to my instinct here and just assumed it would be similar to the quizzes (Samani said this himself in lecture). This was not the case, but the final still felt kind of fair? It was harder than all quizzes for sure, especially because some topics were combined which forced a good understanding of both. But the amount of derivation questions made this feel more like an algebra exam then a test of concepts. However, this final was graded VERY fairly, to the point where he even gave full points on a question that was explained poorly, tying back to Samani being great with feedback. The final gets a 5/10, more difficult than I expected, but still not too terrible. Put a lot of time on the quizzes so you have a healthy buffer for the final.

Overall, the class was a 7/10 for me. S tier professor, B tier quizzes, C tier final. If you are a good test taker and have a very good algebra background, I'd recommend it. If you want to really learn a lot, regardless of your grade, I'd also recommend it. If you care about grades though, know that an A might be a little tough to achieve (though, 55% got at or above an A- this quarter, which is pretty good).

This class is absolute hell. Samani was the most inconsiderate professor I've ever had, and he continuously expected us to memorize an insane amount of information. For background, he started the week off with a prerecorded lecture, which was ALWAYS longer than our 50 minute section for Monday. In addition, he constantly made changes to our quizzes and what was and wasn't allowed. Our discussion worksheets were extremely unhelpful, and our grade was largely made up of quizzes. The best thing Samani did was give us redos for the quizzes. Near the end, he became very stubborn about his expectations about the final, and he refused to listen to concerns from students. I would never take this class with him again, and I would never recommend for anyone to take a class with this man.

Samani is a great teacher and passionate but his quizzes/final were a lot more difficult than what he taught. I always found myself to be confident with what he lectured but the quizzes did not reflect what we were taught- they were always obscure algebraic derivations rather than physics problems. This course definitely took the majority of my time due to the weekly quizzes and don't even get me started on my STACK of flashcards of equations we had to memorize for the final. He was not accomodating at all honestly and expected life science students to make physics their whole life. If he adjusted his exams to reflect lecture material perhaps I'd be more positive but I won't lie this course was super stressful.

Samani is a great lecturer and he is clearly passionate about what he teaches. The format of the class was we had 1 long lecture video for the entire week posted on Monday, with live problem-solving sessions on Wednesday and Friday. Instead of a midterm and final, we had weekly quizzes. The quizzes were moderately difficult, and we had adequate time to complete them. I liked the quizzes overall since they were a bit lower stakes than a big exam.

My gripes with the class:
Some of the labs are not fun and very frustrating, but that's out of Samani's control. Hopefully it's only because we had to do the experiments at home.
We had a final group project that was worth 30% of our grade, but it had no clear guidelines/expectations. I thought it was gonna be pretty chill, but I felt the grading was quite harsh and there were no justifications given for why points were taken off. It dropped my grade more than 5% and almost screwed me over.

I took this class when it was online so it may have been different, but here is the outline for how Professor Samani ran Physics 5B.

No midterms or finals- HOWEVER, there were weekly quizzes (noncumulative, but is helpful to know previous stuff) that he gave us 1.5 hours for.
They were honestly a bit difficult, but as long as you attend his lectures and do the worksheet, it should be fine. He said himself that he wanted students to feel challenged, but was still able to get it in the end, which he succeeded since that was exactly how I felt. There is also partial credit. I honestly loved this system of constant review, and it was less stressful during midterms and final seasons

no lectures-HOWEVER, he would post a recorded lecture that covers the whole week's material at the beginning of the week. They are on average 2 hours long, but is actually shorter if you speed up the parts where he writes. Instead of lecture, he would hold sessions where he showed us practice problems. These were very helpful for understanding the material and the quizzes, and THEY WERE SUPER INTERESTING.

Everything is recorded and posted so very flexible
We can start the quizzes whenever we want in a 24 hour period, but there is a 90 min time limit,

Overall, Professor Samani was amazing, he really cares about student learning, and is a wonderful lecturer. I honestly enjoyed this class quite a bit because of him, despite not liking Physics in general. Take him if you want to learn!