Can someone explain ALEKS assessments?

[sklineho]

Ok, their site is useless in this regard.

I took an assessment yesterday (one I assigned myself) and I know I missed at most, three questions. Yet my assessment rate only went up 4 points. The green bar (that show what you've learned since the last assessment) showed I had covered 6% more.

SOOOOOO if I got all of the answers on a given assessment after having a green bar of 6%, does that mean the most I can get out of said assessment is 6% points?

[marianne202]

I'm not sure exactly which assessment you are referring to, but for the final assessment to get credit you have to open the master account and check the assessment results. It will show an overall percentage score with 70% the magic number to get credit for the course through ACE. If you are just looking at the student side it will only show your pie progress. You must log into the master account and look at the assessement results to see the overall score. I hope this helps.

[sklineho]

No I'm looking at the master assessment (which can also be viewed from the student account via the Reports section at the top). My master account shows all my assessments and the most recent shows only 29% which seems sort of low (plus 3% in green).

[cookderosa]

Ok, you should know that your initial (first) assessment is assessing you on the whole course, but your assessment you JUST took is on the stuff you learned since your last assessment. They'll likely only ask you 1-2 questions that are beyond where you are. But, what you are doing is correct- you order an assessment, get as many right as you can and as you go up, as soon as THAT score (assessment) hits 70% you're done. At that point, you send your score to ACE and it will be logged.

[sklineho]

That's what I thought. I'm going to take assessments every 5% or so. Yes this makes it slower-going but it also seems to be working to force me to retain info as I get asked many questions of the same type on multiple assessments. This isn't a field I'm good at but I'm actually picking up a lot.

Thanks to both of you for the help.

[dbwdb]

How do these assessments work? Are you allowed to refer to any outside info. like a textbook or print outs of aleks solved questions for help or do you have to do it on your own?

[JTP]

How do these assessments work? Are you allowed to refer to any outside info. like a textbook or print outs of aleks solved questions for help or do you have to do it on your own?

This is a very loaded question. If you are asking if there is any sort of proctoring, then no. If you are wanting to know if you are can use out side information to solve the problems, then the answer is you aren't supposed to, but you are able to.

Some users have posted before about passing courses in a matter of an hour or less using certain online math utilities, but that method would only work for lower level courses that list an exact problem they want solved. If you run into word problems you would need to know the process behind setting up the problem. Or in the statistics course almost every question uses a mixture of written information and then you needing to know how certain methods work (like z scores or Chi-Square distribution table) to solve a problem.

The above statement is also why some colleges won't accept ALEKS for their math requirements since nothing was proctored, and you could have even paid someone else to do the work for you.

[dbwdb]

Are there any official rules or does it say anything about outside sources on the Aleks website? I know TESC allows an open book for their Applied LA Math exam and many other schools allow open book exams...

[Prloko]

Are there any official rules or does it say anything about outside sources on the Aleks website? I know TESC allows an open book for their Applied LA Math exam and many other schools allow open book exams...

You probably should have started a new thread for this, but to answer your question:

What are the rules for taking an assessment in ALEKS?
[Sec. 7] You must have paper and pencil when taking an assessment in ALEKS. A basic calculator should be used only when you are instructed to do so. A basic calculator may be provided for some questions. No help whatsoever is permitted, not even rephrasing a problem. Cheating is not an issue, since each student is given different problem-types in different sequences. Even if, by chance, two students sitting next to one another were to get the same problem-type at the same time, the actual problems would almost certainly have different numerical values and require different answers. During the assessment, you will not be given feedback about your answers. The assessment is not a test. Its main purpose is to determine what you are most ready to learn and help you make the best possible progress toward mastery. From the below link:

ALEKS User's Guide for Higher Education Mathematics

I know it's not definitive, but it's the closest you are gonna get. Take it for what it's worth.

[dbwdb]

Do the questions get harder, the more assessments you request? Is it better to work at the pie and ask for an assessment at the end or keep asking for assessments in the hope to finish faster? What are some tips to finish faster?