Am I the only one who struggles with Aleks?

[dcan]

Have you done any of the other ALEKS courses before jumping into trig? You can get credit (if there are slots in your program, i.e. in gen eds or free electives) for ALEKS Intermediate Algebra and College Algebra. In fact, much of what you start out with in trig should be largely covered in College Algebra, so you may be hitting a hard wall with fundamentals the course assumes you already know.

I did Geometry and Beginning Algebra to warm up (before I knew they aren't accepted for credit), and then jumped straight into College Algebra and then Trig. With Trig I assessed I think around 24%, and it took about a month (35 hours or so I think) to get to 70%.

Also, remember the tricks with ALEKS:

1. The tests are not timed. Take as much time as you need with each question, triple-checking if necessary.

2. The questions are drawn from a limited pool of templates -- you probably noticed this by now. Print out or otherwise save off (print to PDF, etc) every explanation of a problem you encounter, and refer to them constantly during your test.

Because of the template questions, if I encountered a new type of question I would intentionally say "I don't know" at least once to save it off for future reference. For tough ones I would do that several times and analyze them to make sure I understood the general rules for how to solve the problem. Then when you encounter a problem that "sounds like" one you already have, just dust it off, review it, and apply it.

Does this teach you "math theory"? Not really. Does it get you to 70? Yes. I have some books at home on modern algebra and real analysis to read, after I finish all my undergrad and grad school. That's for fun later. ALEKS was to get my degree, not teach me theory.