IXLReviews 681

I love IXL! It is formulated to be a tool of rigor. Oftentimes, students want to move through the questions so quickly that when something is wrong, IXL is able to ensure that students are understanding by requiring that students receive extra practice.

It is not about the answer, which is why I see so many students and parents get upset. IXL is a tool of mastery. If you are looking for a tool to expose your child/student to a concept IXL is NOT the right tool. However, if you are looking for a supplemental tool for mastery, CHOOSE IXL. It will not be easy but it will be beneficial for your child's growth and stamina in learning!

THIS WEBSITE MAKES YOU GO THROUGH HELL AND BACK! ONE SESSION OF THAT AND YOUR SHIRST WILL BE DAMP WITH THE AMOUNT OF TEARS YOU WILL LET OUT! NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT IF YOU MESS UP ONCE YOU GABILLION POINTS AND TRUST ME YOU WILL CRY! CRY CRY CRY AND CRY! ITS A WASTE OF TIME AND A PIECE OF CRAP! YOU WILL BUST YOUR BUTT JUST TRYING TO GET ONE ANSWER RIGHT! THIS WEBSITE IS A ABSOLUTE $#! T AND CAN GO DIE IN A HOLE FOR ALL I CARE! WHO EVER MADE THIS IS THE DEVIL HIM OR HER SELF!

I'm a second grader and Most of my teachers assign IXL to us on the daily. We go home, sit down, answer questions with a correct/incorrect point ratio of +1/-8, you can get up very high, near 100, just to have it all destroyed by an awful question. If you get it wrong, it doesn't do a good job of explaining what you did wrong. It just says you got it wrong. Thats it. It isn't hard to grade, either. Just open the lesson and write the number. You don't have to write assignments, assign bookwork and grade it, anything and everything is done by the site. This website has led to computer damage, suspensions, and tears/pain. It isn't good for mental health. People have had full-blown breakdowns because of this. I would only wish this pain upon the teacher who assigned it. In short, stay clear of this website. I salute the teachers who dont assign IXL.

Whenever you get like a number wrong instead of saying like "try again" or something it makes you go back. Another reason that I suddenly realized that when you first get a right answer you get like 10 "points" so like 10% out of 100% in like the end instead of getting 10 points you start getting only 1 point per correct answer. Also, it doesn't matter how many minutes or hours and how much you struggle it just gives you that much. However if you get one wrong like 10 points of something get cut so it would take you ten questions to recover your place.

Personally i think that IXL is the worst app to learn on ever. My mom makes me do IXL every day and i literally stress and cry because sometimes it takes me forever and the iXL's are really hard. When i get a question right it only brings you up like 3 points but then when you get a question wrong it drops you down like 10 which is so annoying especially when your at 99 almost about to finsh. So personally I wouldnt use IXL because I think its the worst learning site EVER! And this is coming from an 11 year old.

My 3rd grade son loves math, but doing IXL -- required by his school during the quarantine -- has just about killed him (and us).

The point system is AWFUL for motivation; according to online reviews, I'm not the only person who's discovered this. My son will fly through a lesson until he gets to the "challenge zone." Then, he is overwhelmed with anxiety, because a correct answer gives +1 points, but an incorrect answer results in -9 points. As a result, he has to do 9 more questions to get back to the same level he was at before the ONE wrong answer. It feels like the myth of Sisyphus come to life.

Instead of working independently and reinforcing concepts in a healthy way (as is the case with Prodigy, which he loves), when he's doing IXL he wants an adult to double-check all of his answers before he submits, so that he can get to 100 and just finish the lesson. (I guess 100 is the required level set by his teacher? It doesn't set him free to move on until he's achieved 100 points.) He's gone from being a kid who's intrinsically motivated to love learning math, to being a kid who cries when he gets a question wrong. This can't be good, from a psych / pedagogical perspective.

IXL is supposedly a website for learning by "playing", but honestly it can make you way less motivated and very stressed. One reason is the fact that they don't even explain properly how to do that question. Here is one example:
"Is ******* divisible by 3?"
*gets it wrong*
IXL says "use the divisibility by 3 rule"
WHAT? You didn't even explain to me all the divisibility rules in the first place, and now you're telling me to answer this question without knowing how to do it. How do I understand that topic? By searching it on the web and in Khan Academy! That brings me to the second point: IXL is paid! You could easily learn math from a quick google search, but IXL simply throws questions at you and assume you know them.
This brings me to the last and final point: IXL's scoring system is absolute wack. Why? Well towards the end of the skill, when you get to your 80s and 90s, you get 2 points for getting it right and -10 points for getting it wrong! This not only decreases your motivation to continue but makes you bang your keyboard and perhaps destroy it!
If IXL had a better scoring system (+1 if you get it right and -1, if you get it wrong, would be way better), a better explanation system(include videos and explain everything clearly before throwing random crap at us), and if it was free(although it doesn't really matter), I would have easily given at least a 4-star review. But since that is not true, one star is the maximum of what I am going to give.