Mc graw hillReviews 1,887

I have developed anger management issues due to the ALEKS trigonometry course. The log-in page describes the site as "life-changing." I can attest to this, but not in a positive way. The only mildly amusing thing about this website is the message you get when you complete a lesson- a cartoon bear at a flowery window sill saying some variation of "R A V I S H I N G!" Is what I am met with after suffering through each living hell of a topic. The bear does not understand the thorough and complete suffering that ALEKS puts me through each math class.

Oh, and not to mention the knowledge checks! You've put in the time to learn all of these topics. You have poured your blood and tears into every problem, spend hours staring into the pixellated realm that lies before you, searching your mind for answers, and pushing past all of the orange "try again" boxes that jeer and taunt you.

And all for nothing.

Do you REALLY know how to apply a sinusoidal function to real-world problems? No, you don't, so go relearn half of what you've done. Do you really know yourself? Do we really know anything in this unending universe which reaches infinitely far beyond our mortal grasp? Do we know anything?

Congratulations, I just had an existential crisis over a trigonometric graph.

Tl; dr: Please. I beg of you. Do NOT even ATTEMPT to use this website if you have a history of anger issues.

Nothing on the website has been consistant with any lectures. It is inconsistent with what it considers to be a significant digit and it isn't consistent with how many digits should be included. It will mark an answer as wong and then show the exact same answer as being the correct one. If you get an answer wrong it undoes your progress so you can be stuck in a loop for hours. One week you'll have 2 topics and the next you will have 24. If you struggle it doesn't have the resources to help improve and it doesn't allow you to skip to a topic you could actually do. The periodic table is pretty much completely useless as it doesn't list the categories that it asks questions about and it only shows the element names if you click on them so unless you know every chemical symbol the table is useless. And they charge almost $100 for this. Worst online program I have ever used.

Before I write my review I want to preface that my iq is 130+ and I am, likely, smarter than you. Aleks is a website designed for review and does not support actually "learning" math in any way. It's a low IQ way of teaching kids math. I'm using it for pre-calc and I can say for sure that I haven't learned anything at all. All college professors or teachers who make their students do Aleks topics in bulk are and should feel disgraceful. This is probably one of the worst things ever to happen. If you're at least above highschool math level, this website will probably only make you stupid. There are a few rare geniuses who will actually be able to learn, but the amount of time investment needed to actually learn is far too great to be worth it. They should opt to simply show you videos or pictures of example problems rather than trying to write the whole thing without the use of those two. Each topic(depending on the difficulty) can take an hour or more to complete. It's like a negative learning reinforcement process where instead of being rewarded for learning, you lose a little more of your sanity due to the realization that you need to study that thing. If you're taking college level math or above don't use this website. Ngl I tried to make this somewhat coherent, but I lost the will to live when my instructor reset over 100 topics or 100+ hours of work and told me to redo it or I'll get a C. If you like this website, you are failing to understand that perspective of an actual human being that is trying to learn. Using this website broke my will to live and I may never recover. If you have to use the phrase "it's not that bad" when there are better and possible alternatives, you are advocating for an inferior learning experience and you have lost all my respect in the education field.

I have to use this software for a college chemistry course. It takes up a great deal of time but does not seem to offer much in return. As a comparison I have used pearson's mastering physics and engineering and as annoying as those programs are the question bank is better and actually leads me to conceptual learning. I feel like aleks actively keeps me from learning as it ties up an extraordinary amount of my time. Time that could be spent reading the book and doing those problems or watching videos lectures that would help me conceptually more than the rote learning aleks seems to employ. I think as far as time versus learning aleks is the worst choice. As others have pointed out because of its point deduction system it does feel like you are being punished when you make a mistake. It also does not differentiate between a sig fig error and a total failure to understand the problem. I would also mention that aleks' sig fig rules are wrong. It if it asks for 2 sig figs and you write 130 it will flag that as 3 sig figs despite a trailing zero not being significant. Not to mention I have to pay for the dubious honour of being harassed by an AI. Like others have said avoid at all costs the problems in text books are better.

I am a student using this website and I am gonna lose my mind. It give you knowledge check every minute and they are meaningless. If I fail one damn question I have to redo the entire thing. The knowledge checks are the most pointless thing and I could literally kill this website if I had the chance it'd be so easy. Just BURN IT PLEASE it frustrates me to the max and meaning absolutely nothing to my education except something that makes me want to commit arson. Thanks, and hey teachers? DON'T USE THIS TERRIBLE AND PATHETIC EXCUSE OF A WEBSITE FOR EDUCATION! 1

I don't understand why every math teacher insists on using this site when every kid swears they hate it. Like if you want a kid to learn, make it fun and interactive but with ALEKS every kid hates it so they're just gonna keep half asleep chugging their way through it. Also kids are more compelled to learn and actually study after when you give them 10 minutes of work because it doesn't overwhelm them, but with ALEKS just the knowledge check takes multiple hours to do. Another thing ALEKS does that is horrible is how it barely repeats anything. It's to the point where if your lucky you will get 5 questions relating to the same topic in a row. Sorry for the book but like using this site makes me hate my life :/

Have been using it for years and it only benefit is that it *sometimes* lets you take pre-tests which can help speed your progress but other than that its pretty awful. Not friendly to the user and is nearly impossible if you have more than 4 courses and a human amount of motivation. Answers can be wrong or unexplained, tests tend to ask for questions significantly different and more difficult than the taught questions. People in videos often tend to have awful mic quality (or don't know how to use one) to the point where I've had the site muted for years.

I have been using ALEKS for my math class in 8th grade. I've only used it for a week, and I've come to the conclusion that it is AN ABSOLUTE PIECE OF CRAP AND A WASTE OF TIME! Every time you get a question wrong, it brings you back to another one that you also got wrong, and it just keeps doing that until at a certain point it suggests that you try another topic. I personally don't think that it explains the topics well, and I think that it is a huge waste of time and I would not recommend using it. But, if you do decide to use it, that's gonna be your own funeral to attend.

As an eighth grade student that is actually decent in math, this site has caused me to be more stressed and paranoid about math in general. Whenever I get the wrong answer, I feel like the site is just sitting there, laughing at me, and then forcing me to do the problem over with NO EXPLANATION. Even if they do give you an explanation, it is far from the problem you are doing. Also, whenever you get a section wrong, they just throw you into another section that is more confusing as the last. I could rant all day, but I don't want to waste your time. But please, DO NOT at any point in time, get ALEKS. Watch paint dry or something better than this site.

Unfortunately, I've payed money for this just to have denied access to my class. **** you. Excuse my language. You took my money and I want it back. I had a good amounts of topics but guess what? They added 9 more topics, thank you so much toe infection. This is like a germ that you can't wash off your body, I feel filthy after using this. I had to take shower after writing this. MY mouth has a bad taste from even thinking about ALEKS. The explanations don't work, I have to go somewhere else to learn the material. Whats the point :( I'm disconsolate.