Mc graw hillReviews 1,892

Aleks claims to help explain and teach topics that aren't covered in class and catch everyone up, but that simply isn't true. The explanations given are weak and do not give the information you need to solve the problems like specific formulas. My school uses iPads, and the website formatting is not compatible. When you attempt to drag an item to indicate a value, such as assigning a value to a bar graph, either the entire website freezes and needs to be restarted, or the website doesn't acknowledge that you changing the graph rather than scrolling. In the end, I cannot submit these types of problems and have had to skip all problems with graphs for answers. My teacher has substituted regular homework for this, and I can't even answer questions because of how bad the web design is. It's not a matter of lazy students, but rather an awful teacher/explanation.

First, KSU entire online navigation is all over the place. I have to navigate to so many menus, sub menus with links to another menu with links that takes me to A L E K S.

Second, my professor assigned 22 TOPICS to be completed in 3@#$ days - Summer 2020. My first day, it took me almost 8 hours just to get 4 / 22 TOPICS. Here's why the system sucks, and is a waste of an learning experience.

If you progress and "master" a set of 3-5 questions under 1 TOPIC, your progression bar moves forward. Wait let's back up. 25 TOPICS x 3-5 questions, that's almost 75-100 math problems WHO HAS THAT MUCH FREAKING PATIENCE TO SIT AND DO 100 MATH QUESTIONS. I get the mastery concept, but if you were to get 1 wrong, YOU WILL HAVE TO START OVER! I like math, it's fun, but this has to be the worse program and experience

I used this to refresh my mind in some math, and guess what... I stumbles upon this useless web of lies with my mom who said, Why not. I used It for a while before I realized how crappy It us. I actually learned things, but it is hard to soak in information on this website. It tells your either you're right, or you're wrong, nothing on why you messed up or what you messed up. It will have multiple part problems, and you'll have to work to know what you did wrong. Granted, that is the point, but the way the program is designed is for smarter people who soak up information quickly and can apply it quickly. Not only that, the way they grade you is unlike a teacher, so even if you know the material and all the formulas, you will fail just by the slightest mistake. This not only happens during lessons, but is also happens during test, and can prolong your time on this virtual hell greatly. These test are knowledge checks, and they are way to spaced out and don't help at all. This also weeds out the dedicated from those who struggle with math, and are on this hell for that very reason. The people who struggle are going to be less patient and are going to give up, defeating the purpose. It causes my brother physical pain because it is so tedious, and I just advise whomever is reading this to avoid the digital $#*!-bin.

ALEKS is the best way to ACTUALLY learn math. It gives no multiple choice options, making you do your own work instead of leaning on order of magnitude guesses. It does not let you move on unless you really understand a concept and can solve problems. You only have to get three problems right to move past a section. Guess what? If you can't get three measly problems right, you SHOULDN'T be moving on! This is for students who want to actually learn and use math. You will learn how to check your work and be a thorough problem solver. If you don't like the concept explanation given in ALEKS, guess what? Youtube and Google exist. Lazy students act like they don't have the capability of looking up an alternative explanation or supplemental material. That's what learning is. Get a working explanation for you, then come back and solve problems. Math is learned by doing and ALEKS is excellent at assessing your ability to handle each concept and moves the student forward in a very straightforward, logical way, with easier concepts building up to more difficult ones. You can go back and review at any time and there is a lot of supplemental material to take notes from. I used it in one online course and then got a subscription and used it as a supplement to ALL of my college courses and it allowed me to ALWAYS be ahead of the curve. I LOVE this program!

Not only are we forced to do 20 topics a week, the topics are incredibly confusing and impossible to understand. Ever since they updated their site, lessons that should have an explanation button don't anymore. This garbage site has brought me to tears several times, either from anger or resignation. My math grade is at a 30% because of the stupid a** lessons/topics I don't bother to complete because I would get an F (from all of the wrong answers)anyways.
All of my grades are B's and up, but my math grade is chopped in half when my teacher grades our aleks scores. I would rather do 3 page-fulls of equations, triangles, ANYTHING; because then I would actually have a shot at understanding what in the world I'm doing.
Why any school still uses this is beyond me; Aleks has done nothing to help me in my two years of using it. All it does is beat you while you're down and punishes you further by giving you a low score and MORE topics to complete.
This site needs to be shut down. It should never be an option for receiving a grade ever.

Makes me so sad because im stuck on a question early in my class and i cant move on until i somehow answer the question that requires i makes 2 graphs? So im gonna make a D in chem thank you aleks you are the reason i dont sleep

I have to use aleks for my chem class. When I first used it in my first chem class of its series, I kpt getting content ahead of time of what we were going over in class and I feel like even on the current content, I was not learning anything on aleks and was learning more with our daily assignments that were not on aleks. Aleks does not give any good explanations and for me it does not have any videos to help explain the topics for a visual. Overall, I hate this site and wish someone would ban it from my college. If I could give it 0 stars, I would. 10/10 would not recommend.

Getting a question wrong punishes you with more questions, which causes a negative feedback loop of tom$#*!ery that takes up to 3 hours to get 10 questions done. If a school requires the unrealistic goal of 15 topics per week, the user has no choice but to fail a knowledge check, as otherwise it will take an entire day to get it done. No matter how typically calm the user is, the haunting orange text "try again" will unleash an animal rage that will make them want to snap their computer in half.