Mc graw hillReviews 1,892

ALEKS seems like its an easy program at first, but as time goes on it makes everything harder than it needs to be. I know it has good intentions and it's creators meant to benefit students and teachers alike. However, this program relies on how much you can do and how fast, rather than the quality of your work. Even if you are able to advance from topic to topic quickly you will be based with Knowledge checks. Knowledge checks are quizzes on topics you've previously learned. It should be easy; it isn't. For every question wrong it sets you back topics. Occasionally I would be back at square one. Wouldn't recommend for students or administrators

Thanks aleks for making do the same things over and over again. Staring at a computer screen for hours on end, all because of little typos and petty $#*! that doesn't matter and never will. Seriously, this program has turned me from someone who was pretty confident in my math abilities into someone who feels like an absolute moron trying to do this stuff and causing me to have literal breakdowns over this bs. Whatever you do, DON'T USE ALEKS.

This app has caused so many mental breakdowns for me. Our teachers are really strict about it and make us do a grade above us and a lot of it is multiple grades above. People in my school pay people to do ALEKS for them and some kids make a lot of money off of it. It's also super easy to cheat because you can find the answers with a quick google search. Basically everyone hates Aleks unless they're an adult who didn't do it themselves. Find a way that students enjoy that won't stress them out a ton. People cry at school about it.

ALEKS creates a learning path based on things that you know, it does this by giving you an initial knowledge test from the content that's going to be discussed and learned in your course. If you don't know the content then it will give you problem sets so that you catch up to where you need to be, is that really a bad thing? If anything it's helpful because if you just learn the content that's required, do you really understand it?
For my specific case, during the initial knowledge test I just clicked on "Do Not Know" all the way through, for my course in calculus it left me with 150 topics to learn for 8 weeks. Since I have my finals in the last week, ALEKS wants me to complete 25 topics over 7 weeks.
The reviews about ALEKS marking correct answers wrong is false comments, them reviewers are probably just really sour about forgetting to put a negative in front of their answer or rounding the the nearest tenth or hundredth and the program marked it wrong because, well, it was wrong. And honestly, when it marks my answer wrong I look at it and think the same thing, like "Well that's what I put!" but really I see my mistake because on paper I see that I briefly forgot that it was a negative or positive answer or forgot my decimal count and by rereading the problem I see that I didn't read it completely when I should have.
Sometimes I have a hard time understanding how to get to the answer that they want, but they have an explanation tab and if you don't understand that explanation they have a second explanation available. There are definitions included for math terms and it includes related terms to them terms. There is an ebook attached to it for your weekly assignments, if you read, try to understand what you don't know then there is no problems.
If you get wrong answers, then there is a problem with the understanding of the content, that's why the program will not let you continue when you don't understand the problem sets. If it did, the program would be lying and give you a grade you do not deserve.
There is a pie involved with ALEKS, it shows you what you need to know with how many topics for the course, there is also a timeline and you can use this to plan out your learning path through the week, not selecting your path but how many problems you need to do per week.
The only reason I had thought to leave a review was because I saw all the negative reviews and was in disagreement to mostly all of them. Just sounds like they want a trophy for wrong answers rather than the right answers and I hate math and I'm terrible at it.
I had gotten F's K-10 in math, had a teacher that believed more in one on one teaching my junior and senior years, this is the first time I have gotten A's in math besides my junior and senior years.
Overall, the program is easy to use and honestly not as bad as what everyone else is saying.

This program frequently makes me question what is a legitimate priority and often results in me knowing and extensive amount of knowledge on a subject that never appears on a test or in class. I have used ALEKS for three semesters of college level chemistry and it is hated by all students. That is not an exaggeration. The three major issues with ALEKS are as follows: 1.) It requires actual perfection from students. Professionals are not perfect so why expect that from a student? A simple miss-click results in exaggerated penalties. 2.) For a program that requires perfection it is not perfect itself. From very confusing jumps in concepts that are not explained clearly we, as students, feel like idiots on this program. Not to mention ALEKS has a tendency to mark correct answers as incorrect (I have photo evidence of this). 3.) The price is insane. Charging students upwards of $50. College students are broke as is, and now we have to waste money on an online program that wastes hours of our life. Yes, ALEKS does teach you topics and does ask excellent questions, but the pros hardly outweigh the cons. An old fashion review sheet and TA meetings / extra hours would get more done, and for far less money, than this horrific program.

I had a great teacher, I am an A+ student, I am really good at math, I was 13 and going into a college math class, and The teacher decided to use Aleks. This started a very stressful time of my life- Every weekend working for 4-6 hours on 5 little sections that turned into 55 little sections... no one else did any better with it. I got the highest grade in the class and I maintained my A while the average was a C or D. Thank you Aleks for the struggle and the hardship cause it is great and I hope all of you never put yourself through this. I get that the website is built ok, I mean it only takes 5 minutes to pull up a 2 min problem to work out in 22 minutes cause you have to redo it 6 times... If you love math, and messing up, and doing your work a hundred times, this is for you. But beware, it will be a struggle. I know. You would do better with the worst professor in the world than this curriculum. Pls dont use this. It wont be beneficial.

What is the worst thing to have people who struggle with math do? Spend hours staring at a computer screen. I have never been more frustrated in my life. The College I go to made me take this program as I placed extremely low in math. I have Discalculia and I need extra help trying to understand all these concepts. As I write this now, I have spent three hours trying to just get through their "test" that they give you every day. Going through it, I have had to Google more than half the formulas as I don't remember any of what I learned. I have spent upwards of six hours a day trying to complete this "pie" and it has only made me hate math more than I ever did before.

If you have the chance, don't waste your time with this program. It will only upset you more towards this subject. This program should be used for people who are already good at math. Online courses are miserable even when you understand the material.