1) I took several upper-division classes before I took the 61 series, which I took in my 3rd year. (For my CogSci double-major, I didn't take the pre-req until my final semester, long after I had taken all of the upper-division classes.)

2) It is my understanding that most of the weeding classes (CS61 and their counterparts in other majors) are now graded on a curve, but they weren't back then: your grade was your grade. Hilfinger and others like him are the reason for the change. Quite ironically, several of their colleagues noted at the time that these professors would not have passed their own exams if they hadn't written them. (The story making the rounds back then for the reason that Hilfinger agreed to curve his class: after arguing for a week that students deserved the grades they earned, he took a test prepared by a colleague trying to demonstrate that his test was too difficult, and failed.)

Calls to mind a Hilfinger quote from my CS61A experience: "Mike Clancy makes the tests; I make them harder."

Lol yes, it was Hilfinger. He originally tried to flunk the entire class until the administration forced him to use a curve.

I took CS61B with Hilfinger in '96. That guy was a character. In one lecture he didn't let a person answer a C++ question because he said "no, you already learned C++ in highschool. I want a virgin". People tried to avoid his classes, but you learn a lot from Hilfinger.