50 customer reviews of aleks.com
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Based on 50 reviews from ALEKS customers, company has accumulated an average rating of 1 stars, indicating that majority of customers are not satisfied with its service.
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Description: Provides a complete web based educational environment for K-12 and Higher-Education mathematics, accounting, statistics, and chemistry.
Address: 15460 Laguna Canyon Road, 92618
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My college grade is in the hands of a dystopian robot that somehow developed Parkinson's and is practically attempting to destroy the academic world through its disguise. Teachers and professors look at this $#*!ty program and think "oh it's good," and suffer an internal hellfire of stress after the students start complaining about how meticulous and $#*!ing broken it is. Inevitably, ALEKS doom an entire class' schoolyear by buying a piece of horse$#*!.
Seriously, go to hell. Specifically, the faggot in charge of making the scoring system can $#*! himself with a 3 foot metal pipe cleaner. You're the most disconnected $#*! that society can ever muster from its vast variety of minds. In what $#*!ing world besides insanely $#*!ing serious calculations with a 1960's $#*!-stone computer would you ever get something entirely wrong by messing up the format of an answer in the very slightest? For christ sakes, even $#*!ING JAVASCRIPT GIVES YOU A COHERENT ERROR MESSAGE, ALL WITHOUT THE BULL$#*!, "oh hey faggot, you got that wrong. $#*!ing dumbass, you're literally $#*!ed, so we're taking a point off". Hey you $#*!$#*!, with your idea of sympathy, this is how the $#*!ing world would work:
OOPS, YOUR HOSPITALIZED WIFE IS NOW IN CARDIAC ARREST BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T PUT THAT - SIGN OUTSIDE OF THE FRACTION! I'VE MARKED YOUR ANSWER AS "WRONG". OH BUT, I NEVER TOLD YOU THAT, SO HAVE THAT PANIC ATTACK AND FIGURE OUT WHY I'M SAYING YOU'RE $#*!ING WRONG IN ORDER TO KEEP HER BRAIN CELLS ALIVE WITH OXYGENATED BLOOD!
ALEKS punishes the student very roughly for any, and I mean ANY mistake, such as a wrong digit or a misplaced parenthesis. The problem with this punishment is that every time you're 'punished' you lose a bit of progress. Which means you have to expend MORE time on the site.
This circle of failing and retrying is extremely frustrating for most. The explanations are not different for those you'd find on a textbook. You may ask"well, what's wrong about that?" ALEKS is not a textbook. ALEKS is supposed to be an interactive tool to learn. It doesn't actually explain anything to the student: it only expects him/her to understand.
Some of the very few people who have bothered to give a positive rating to ALEKS will say"well, if you don't understand, there is always YouTube and Google". No, dumbass(excuse me for this word), that's not how it works. You are PAYING for ALEKS. If it's a paid service, it's supposed to be complete on its own. You shouldn't have to reccur to external sources just to get by. If YouTube and Google are enough, then why even bother paying ALEKS?
Of course some of the smarty pants students won't see the trouble with it. I admit it, through my first semester, I felt the same: I couldn't understand why so many of my classmates hated it. Nonetheless, as it got progressively more demanding, not in skill, but in TIME and CONCENTRATION, it made me hate it. Not only it made me hate it, but it made me hate math. Ultimately, this is what programs like this are doing: planting the seed of hate for Math in the heart of the majority of students, and then cherishing those who actually had the math skills all along. Learning shouldn't EVER work like that. ALEKS is only widening the gap between the so-called good smart students and those who are labeled as bad or lazy students, as if it wasn't wide enough already. It is only bringing harm to this already desolated world.
That's ALEKS.
Do you remember Charlie Brown, and Lucy with the football, and how she promised she'd hold it for him to kick this time, so he geared up, raced to punt, and Lucy yanked the football away, causing Charlie to splatter on the ground, humiliated?
That's ALEKS.
If you want to take an Algebra class based on "Chutes and Ladders" or "Sorry", where you have your progress revoked for the smallest mistakes, are punished for wrong answers, misguided, given piss-poor explanations, and don't learn a damned thing except to remember why you hated math to begin with, then ALEKS is your program. If you want to spend an entire semester feeling battered and abused, while learning NOTHING, then ALEKS is your program.
If you want to really learn Algebra, go elsewhere. Steer clear of this atrocity.
Rhetorical question: If I've truly "mastered" all of these topics, as ALEKS claims I have after only getting three correct homework problems in a row... and if I'm putting in 50 hours a week (not an exaggeration, I'm afraid) in the program working on topics... and I'm really making a determined effort because I want an A in this class... then how is it that I FAILED a midterm?
It's because ALEKS IS AN INEFFECTIVE TEACHING TOOL.
Punishment device, yes. Teaching tool, no.
Thankfully, I was allowed to retake the exam and passed. Barely. Despite focusing on the exact kinds of problems that would be on the exam.
I know why it's set up this way, though. It makes total sense. The more students who fail the class, the more repeat offenders it produces, and that means more money for the ALEKS company coffers. So, set up every student to fail, then rake in the dough as ALEKS come back again and again because it's used in a course that is a Gen Ed requirement for nearly everyone, and it MUST be passed. It is the Gatekeeper to the Math Major as well.
ALEKS SUCKS. I could have limited myself to that, but I felt it would help to add an explanation of WHY it sucks. Actually, there isn't enough room on the page nor time in the day for me to detail every single reason why terrible things should happen to its creator(s).
Well, gotta run. My Algebra class (that uses ALEKS) is in 20 minutes, and we get to take an EXAM tonight. OH BOY. One more week then I am DONE with this nightmare.
Over the course of the semester, my fellow ALEKS students dropped out of the class like flies. ALEKS were good people, completely undeserving of the torture ALEKS put them through. I thought about quitting many times, but I really wanted to move forward with my degree, so I stuck it out and barely ended up with a C in the class. I was grateful to escape with my life. Some of us weren't so lucky...
Okay, that was a bit dramatic, but in all seriousness, programs like ALEKS pose a major threat to our education system. It allows teachers and professors to be lazy and out of touch with their student's needs. Humans cannot, I repeat, CANNOT learn strictly by repetition on a computer. Memorize? Sure! Learn and Apply? Not a chance. There's a difference between cramming a bunch of facts and methods into your head like ALEKS teaches and truly working from the ground up to understand a concept. There's a reason a majority of the reviews for this product are one star.
If anyone who works at ALEKS is reading this, or maybe even a dean at a college who inflicts this program on students, please do something about this horrible system. It should really be a no-brainer that this isn't working.
My Uni offered me Aleks for college math prep to make up for half a hs credit and let me $#*!ing tell you.
DON'T DO IT.
I stayed up night after night doing literally HOURS STUCK ON ONE GOD DAMN TOPIC.
Aleks pushes you back every time you don't get an answer correct it makes you do more $#*!ty f0cking problems.
You start with 5 you get one wrong you are pushed back and have to do more. THE SAD S#IT IS ALEKS DON'T EXPLAIN ITTTT EACH ONE IS DIFFERENT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TO FOLLOW. Who ever rated this s#it 5 stars your moms a H0E, they are those teachers who spend all day drinking coffee and talking to their cousin Karen. I can't tell you the stress this site has put on me. I literally cried more times because of this site then I did for my ex. I'd rather sit my a$$ in a nest of bullet ants then use this. I am a straight A student matter of fact straight 100s thanks to Aleks I am late and over due in all my math assignments. I've spent over 23 hours this week on this s#it and I DIDNT LEARN SHIIIIIITTT
Aleks is the definition of I wish a b! Tch would if you get a question wrong even just forgetting to round a decimal up it will be considered wrong. ALEKS will TAKE AWAY the last answer you got right. That's right. You get PUNISHED for a wrong answer. IT TOOK ME 9 HOURS TO COMPLETE A TOPIC
Now imagine working full time and doing other university course I LITERALLY FINISHED 60 ASSIGNMENTS IN FRENCH POETRY AND I DIDN EVEN FINISH 10 TOPICS IN ALEKS This site is the bane of my existence, just ask the FBI agent watching me through the camera I have cried, yelled at the computer, broke an 3 acrylic nails. I normally curse a lot, the amount of times I cursed with Aleks is more than every cursing word I have said ever since the age of 11. THEN THERES A DAMN KNOWLEDGE CHECK AND ITS A PRETEST YES BASICALLY F UP IN A QUESTION AND U GOT MORE TOPICS TO DO. SO hey if youre dumb in math? Guess what buddy? You double the workkk YOU CANT ASK QUESTION WHY ITS WRONG YOU GET MORE WORK BABYY
You will still have to take periodic knowledge checks! What does this mean?
All your time will be taken up and you gatta do more topics or you can't move on... get anything wrong you have to do that same s**t ALL. OVER. AGAIN. With ALEKS you need to have the memory of a GOD DAMN whale and elephant. Or forever be stuck in the Hell that is review topics.
If you want to commit suicide the original way and mentally and physically drain yourself signup with Aleks nowwww!
Dear Creator,
Go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell go burn in hell
In this time of online teaching and learning as a teacher ALEKS is very appealing but it did not do what I had hoped. It's very tempting to use its pre-prepared topics but I urge you to use something more hands on. Even just having students write down exercises you did yourself and solve them helps so much. In my 5 years of teaching teenagers (known for being anxious) I have never seen so many students been so emotionally distraught over a "Try Again". No system is perfect but this is not anything close to the needed. This is only my experience with math and can't speak for other topics. I hope this helps!
To expand a little more on this for those who are curious, I'll explain why ADHD matters. First it's a wide spectrum disorder so my experience may be unique for me. In terms of learning I need much more practice than the average person. I will get many answers wrong as I learn. My ADHD manifests in such a way that any new material I'm learning takes my best effort to grasp and hang onto. For math, even more so. This is directly against how ALEKS works. Repeatedly, as I'm trying to grasp topics ALEKS gives me the "You need a break" message. I'll get one or two right, one or two wrong, over and over. I'm learning. That is how I learn with math. This is not acceptable, and since I'm not going fast enough, time to a new topic! This for me, pretty much erases any progress I've made. I'll have to try to learn it all over again, when that topic pops up 5,10 topics later. Rinse and repeat.
The explanations themselves, in terms of being a person learning brand new material are extremely poor. I can only imagine ALEKS is acceptable for people who already grasp, and mostly master the topics it is "teaching". There are almost no alternative methods for anything, very little to no explanations of the problems. Often I find that the program expects me to already know a bulk of the material.
Don't get me wrong, I want to learn. The thing is if this program is suppose to be teaching me, I shouldn't be in tutoring 24/7 to have someone baby and explain every. Single. Thing.
What ALEKS should do:
1. Different learning styles. You might be on a machine, but people are not machines. We don't all learn the same way and different people need different approaches. There should be more expansive explanation options for those who need it.
2. The 3 and done is not learning! If someone gets many answers wrong before finally getting those 3 correct that's obviously a topic ALEKS will need practice on. Since math builds on itself, this approach needs to be reconsidered.
I am so grateful that ALEKS is being used a free "helper" program at my school. I would be infuriated if I had to actually pay for it and I will be sure to avoid any professor who uses this program in the future.
TLDR: If you have a learning disability or need a lot of practice/often make mistakes during learning math, AVOID this program!
2. Reading text and looking at examples does not equal teaching. If these "explanations" weren't so convoluted, then students would perhaps be inclined to learn, instead of cheat.
3. Inconsistent- there is no way to see which "topic" number you are on without exiting. That doesn't even matter, as some topics don't seem to go towards your weekly goal: I had 6 to do in one day, and these "filler topics" caused me to have to do 20.
4. Not sure why, but this is genuinely harmful/dangerous towards people with anger issues, mental illness, etc. There are multiple reports of s/h & frustration (breaking things, etc). Hell, I'm crying 30 minutes into my topics each day. There is something about the site that is just mind-numbing and makes you feel like utter s**t.
5. The mind numbing definitely works; I immediately forget everything that I've learned. Once a knowledge check shows up, I know I'm screwed. There is no way for students to retain information if it's not actually explained in a meaningful way.
6. Knowledge checks. Dear god. You are tested on completely random topics, past and future. If you miss a single question, you are forced to do extra work & cannot progress in your actual classwork.
7. This is supposed to be a "replacement for teachers and classes", yet my professor is standing around all day, refusing to answer questions, while we work on Aleks. These people are paid to watch us work? I cannot learn online, but the entirety of Math 111 has moved to Aleks, since "student scores have gone up since." I guarantee you the school is getting paid to partner with this website.
8. I used to enjoy math before I used this program. Genuinely, I really did.
What an absolutely insane excuse of a math program, how has this been allowed to go on for so long?
Additionally, for some reason, the website continues to automatically put me back on topics that I have already completed. I finished topics 1,1a, 2, and about 70% of 3. However, when I logged in, the "start my path" in the home section was set on topic 2. It took me hours of hard work to pass these topics and all of a sudden I was pushed back? I started working on the topics and the numbers seemed to just start over. It went from 240 topics left to 216 topics left and then after logging back into the system, I was set at 240 again. It is so aggravating that I'm not progressing properly in the course. I have completed the same assignments over and over again because the website is not registering all of the work that I did. According to my progress, I haven't even started on topic 3 which is totally untrue, I was almost finished with topic 3 what the hell?
The price of an Aleks subscription is 80$+ for a limited time and even more expensive if you purchase the Aleks code from a campus. If anyone is paying that ridiculous amount for an education program designed to help students achieve goals and actually succeed, then that's what ALEKS better $#*!ing receive. It is a huge rip-off to pay that much money for a service that doesn't even work and does the bare minimum for its users. I highly suggest for anyone who is looking for any type of learning website to avoid using Aleks. I put in way too much work, time and effort just to get regressed out of nowhere.
ALEKS spies on students. For example, this FAQ (frequently asked questions) document from ALEKS customer support states "Respondus Monitor is an automated "remote proctoring" companion application for LockDown Browser that uses webcam and video technology to record students... " (ALEKS customer support pg. 1). This means that ALEKS uses an application that records students. This evidence shows that ALEKS spies on students to steal private information to grow their artificial intelligence that uses machine learning because ALEKS admitted that they use webcam technology to record students. So, ALEKS and its parent company McGraw-Hill have done this but that's not the only shady thing McGraw-Hill has done.
McGraw-Hill has done controversial/problematic things. For example, McGraw-Hill sued the estate of essayist James Baldwin because he died before he could finish his book "remember this house" and pay back the $200,000 advance that McGraw-Hill gave him. The New York Times states "Several publishing executives said they had never encountered a case of a publisher pursuing the estate of a dead author to recover an advance." (Roger Cohen, 1990). This means that publishing executives said that a case like the McGraw-hill v. James Baldwin estate lawsuit is a very rare one. This evidence relates to the idea that the McGraw-Hill company has done controversial things because many lawyers, publishing executives, and regular citizens did not like this decision which is the meaning of controversial. A problematic thing McGraw-Hill has done is revise history. For example, CNN states "... to vent her frustration over the wording of a passage in her son's "World Geography" textbook that calls African slaves "workers" and "immigrants."(McAfee). This means that McGraw-hill called kidnapped slaves "workers and immigrants" when they were clearly not. This evidence relates back to the idea that McGraw-hill has done problematic things because falsifying history is an incredibly problematic concept. Since ALEKS has done problematic things I think it's time for a substitute.
Khan Academy is better than ALEKS. For example review site "Site Jabber" says "ALEKS has a consumer rating of 1.24 stars from 1,493 reviews indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. ALEKS ranks 196th among tutor sites…positive reviews (last 12 months): 6.5%" (ReviewFeeder.com) while the overview for Khan academy is "Khan Academy has a consumer rating of 3.71 stars from 63 reviews indicating that most customers are generally satisfied with their purchases. Consumers satisfied with Khan Academy most frequently mention high school. Khan Academy ranks 10th among math sites… positive reviews (last 12 months): 83.3%" (ReviewFeeder.com). This means that people (teachers and students) like khan academy more than ALEKS. This evidence relates to the point that other sites are better than ALEKS because people on average enjoy khan academy's teachings better than ALEKS. Another piece of evidence is that Khan Academy support says "Our Website. With thousands of videos, it is easily the most exhaustive collection of instruction on the Internet allowing learners to know that they can fill in almost any of their "gaps" with the content on this site." (khan academy). This means that Khan academy has more material to help students than Aleks. This evidence supports the idea that khan academy is better than ALEKS because Khan academy has materials to actually teach and help students. Khan academy is, in my humble opinion, better than ALEKS.
So in conclusion, ALEKS should be abolished from the Clermont northeastern school system or should be modified/ replaced with a better substitute because ALEKS spies on students to steal private information to grow their artificial intelligence that uses machine learning, McGraw-Hill has done controversial/ problematic things, and other sites like Khan Academy are better at teaching than ALEKS. Just in my personal opinion as a student, keeping it as the main website for math in this district is worse for students and teachers who use ALEKS as a resource.
Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/19/books/mcgraw-hill-drops-baldwin-suit.html
https://www.aleks.com/support/Respondus_Lockdown_Browser_ALEKS.pdf
https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/04/living/mcgraw-hill-slavery-textbook-mom-complaint...⇄ /> https://www.ReviewFeeder.com/reviews/aleks.com
https://www.ReviewFeeder.com/reviews/khanacademy.org
https://support.khanacademy.org/hc/en-us/articles/202260264-How-is-Khan-Academy-...⇄
Each section takes an incredibly long time and requires a streak of correct answers, but the digital format makes it difficult to understand the explanations given for how to solve problems or why the answers are incorrect. On top of that, I was just given a review quiz for ALL of the material Ive learned in the program. Heres the catch: if you miss a single problem in the review, you have to re-take that entire unit! The whole unit! If I miss a negative sign in an equation, I have to review FOILS, parabolas, exponential equations, etc, even if it was a simple mistake that could be very quickly explained to me or that I would NEVER repeat.
Furthermore, the program doesnt let you choose which units you would like to review. It doesnt matter if Im simply not in the mood for trigonometry: guess who gets to do trigonometry for three straight days before she gets to move on to pre-calculus (even though she only needs to review 1 concept for pre-calc and 15 for trigonometry). The program will show you your progress, but it wont let you choose which subjects you would like to review (even though Im a completionist and prefer to finish subjects one at a time).
Finally, even though I scored a 75% on the placement test (which put me at nearly ready for calculus), I still have over one-hundred subjects to complete! The entire program has over 300 subjects, which I need to complete in random order and occasionally restart, and I only have a month! (And, no, I still haven't figured out why I scored a 75% but still have a little less than half the work to go. It's madness, I say!)
Overall, I think ALEKS a horrible program, and that it creates cheaters out of honest students. I consider myself pretty honest, academically speaking, and I would never cheat on concepts in the classroom. However, this program has left me absolutely petrified to answer questions that Ive completed countless times before: it penalizes imperfection, which leads me to google answers out of fear of repeating what I already know! I truly didn't realize how fearful it made me of mistakes, until I saw a familiar problem: in fact, I used that equation in the classroom for over five years, from algebra 1 all the way to precalculus. I've seen it on every math test I've taken, yet I was so afraid of retaking that unit that I couldn't use it correctly! (Trust me, I even used it correctly on the placement test, but hours inside of that degrading program has made me reluctant and afraid to use even basic math!) I could recite the formula in my sleep, in fact. It's called the quadratic formula...
The quizzes also don't allow you to fix your mistakes. I know for a fact that I made a mistake converting radians to degrees three problems ago, but now I will have to re-take radians, degrees, arc lengths, and circle circumference units, even though I ALREADY KNOW what I did wrong! That would absolutely never happen in a classroom! Taking this program makes me feel as though I'm a puritan pilgrim of the sixteenth century: making a tiny mistake may result in up to HOURS of punishment.
Please, don't assign this program to your students, even if it's provided by your district. I am a student entering college, meaning that this program is completely elective for me (and, after that horrible quiz, I'm electing to never use the program again). I did not write this review out of a hatred of homework: in fact, I love math, and I plan to enter a math-based career. I wrote this review because ALEKS discourages learning and breeds a hatred of math.
If anyone able to change the ALEKS program reads this, here's an idea: why not, instead of forcing students repeat units, ask them to fix the mistakes made in similar problems, such as on the placement tests or quizzes that ALEKS took, after giving a small explanation of the problem or the mistake that the student made? That way, students will actually learn from their mistakes instead of stagnating and becoming afraid to learn.
It's an asinine way of learning. I honestly have no problem with it, because I understand the program wants us to know this stuff before moving on. My problem is that the explanations given are horribly explained and make no sense. It at least takes several minutes just to decipher what they're trying to explain to me, then another 20 minutes just to constantly switch between the problems and explanation. On top of that, every 6-8 hours (within the program) you have to take a knowledge check. Well, if you already feel like you're being held back, here comes another obstacle for you. Knowledge checks takes everything you've been doing since the last knowledge check and makes you do a 25 question quiz/test. At the end of it, it tells you how many topics you've mastered so far, and how many topics you have to go back and relearn. No explanation on what you missed. No opportunity to see how you missed a question or even what question you missed. It doesn't help that you have a time limit within each week to meet, and on top of that you have a certain topics goal every few weeks, and failing to meet that really messes your grade up.
All in all, the program is horrible. It's a terrible way to teach anyone how to do anything. I feel like I'm learning to deal with the constant anxiety and stress of not passing instead of any actual math. If your college says ALEKS offer Aleks, do not take it. I'm serious. It's a terrible program and it's made my life very, very stressful. Like everyone else here, I hate this program. I can't wait to have math over with just so I don't have to use it anymore. Aleks is a perfect example of terrible design.