Mason M.

This is n amazing company. They have the biggest selection of raised relief maps I have ever seen in a single store. They have basically all the available USGS 1:250,000 quads, plus some rare ones. They also have foreign maps, state maps, world maps, and much more. The website is easy to navigate and they do a good job explaining their products. One issue is that their index map for the 1:250,000 quads is out of date with regards to availability. Other than that, it is great!

I am a straight A student. However, ALEKS has significantly lowered my grade in the chemistry class I am taking. There are a lot of reasons.

First, the access card cost like a hundred dollars. That is a lot of money, especially for a college student like myself. A website like Khan Academy is way better, because it is free and you can watch videos if you do not understand the topics! ALEKS has no videos whatsoever, only vague explanations written out for each topic.

I waste literally hours a day on ALEKS. This takes time away from my 6 other classes, so I fall behind. It takes forever to learn any number of topics. Each topic usually has three to five problems to complete before you can move on. If you get a problem wrong, it takes away one of the problems you got right. REALLY?! If you get a problem right the next problem should not delete that progress! This takes so much longer than it should. What was wrong with the people who invented this garbage?

The quizzes are IMPOSSIBLE to do well on unless by sheer fluke you are able to get every part of every question right. The chemistry quizzes I take are usually about 6 questions long, and each question often has like five parts. If you miss one part, it blows the whole question and you get like a 50 or 60%. Miss one part of two different questions, and it gives you like a 30%. WHY DOES IT NOT GIVE PARTIAL CREDIT? That is no way to teach a subject.

It takes HOURS and HOURS to learn any significant number of topics, and then it randomly gives you a knowledge check. If you get a problem wrong on the knowledge check, you lose all your progress in that section and have to re-learn it, when ALEKS decides to let you, and then try to master it again. You just spent hours of your precious time only to be back where you started. What a waste of time! One problem should not decide how much you know in an entire topic. That is not how education works.

I do not understand how anyone is able to complete an ALEKS course. Unless you have a 100% understanding of each topic in a subject, and have dozens of hours a week available, you will not do well. This is a ridiculous expectation to have for students, especially college students, who are taking multiple classes and often working several hours a week.

DO NOT USE ALEKS. DO EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO AVOID IT.