Study.com taking a long time

[Dowew]

Hi everyone,

I've got my buddy working on Principles of Finance at Study.com.  Hes used to doing Straighterline and clunking out the exams in a day.  Study.com is taking significantly longer, as in hes been going thru this for several hours a day for multiple days now.  

Is this indicative of study.com ?  Are there any faster alternatives you can suggest ?

[Yenisei]

Principles of Finance is a fairly difficult business course that covers a lot of ground, so that may have something to do with it.

[Merlin]

Hi everyone,

I've got my buddy working on Principles of Finance at Study.com.  Hes used to doing Straighterline and clunking out the exams in a day.  Study.com is taking significantly longer, as in hes been going thru this for several hours a day for multiple days now.  

Is this indicative of study.com ?  Are there any faster alternatives you can suggest ?

Study.com courses almost always take longer than Straighterline courses. Particularly if you're used to skimming the course material and relying on open book exams and finals which can accelerate the process. Study.com doesn't work the same way... it forces you to focus on learning the material and less on just passing the quizzes and such. Particularly since the final exam is closed book and represents 67% of the final score.

Time wise, it is all about the amount of time you can put into it. Expect roughly 10-80 hours of actual study time (not including projects/papers/math practice) for each course. Reduced by any prior knowledge of you have in the subject, of course. So if you're doing it full time, and putting in at least 8 hours a day, you can get through most courses in a week or less (a couple days for simple courses) and under two weeks for the longer or more challenging courses. If you can't put in that much time, it will take longer, of course.

As for faster options... credit by exam is the fastest since you just have one test and you're done. By this, I mean CLEP/DSST/TECEP/UExcel/CSU-Global CBE, etc. At Davar and Saylor the final course score is based purely on a single exam as well, so those can be fast as well. For exams, prep time is all on you though.

Aside from exam options, I can't think of any other faster course-based options. Shmoop was fast for some of the easier courses, but that isn't an option anymore -- depending on what school your buddy is aiming for. TESU doesn't accept their courses anymore, though other schools may.

[randomatom]

I have nothing to compare it to because I have only done study.com.  Completed Environmental Science 101: Environment and Humanity in a few days, maybe 6-8 hours total.  About a quarter of the way through Business 108: Business Ethics in a couple of hours.

Both of these courses are set up with a bunch (3-15) of lesson quizzes per chapter worth a total of 100 points and a 200 point final.  According to their "How can I earn college credit?" support document, you need to get an 80% or above on every quiz AND a 70% or better on the final.  This is a little different from what their web app will tell you-- it implies that you need a 70% overall, so if you get a 100% on the quizzes you only need a 55% on the final.  I'd shoot for the 70% on the final to be safe, but if anyone here knows for sure please chime in.

In the EnvSci course they offered a pre-test that would let you "test out" of some of the quizzes.  I don't think this was worth it.  Just start at the top of the chapter/lesson list, don't watch the videos, skim the text transcript of the video, open the quiz in another tab and do the quiz, checking back with the transcript if you don't know something.  If you get an 80% or above you can go to the next lesson.  If you don't retake it immediately-- it's the same questions in the same order.  You can retake up to 3 total attempts to get 100 if you want to get max points, so you might as well.

Working this way I can get through a "lesson" in two minutes or less.  There were 139 and 145 lessons in the two courses I am in, so that is a 5hr upper bound, plus the two hour final, which actually took quite a bit less than 1hr.

[Merlin]

Both of these courses are set up with a bunch (3-15) of lesson quizzes per chapter worth a total of 100 points and a 200 point final.  According to their "How can I earn college credit?" support document, you need to get an 80% or above on every quiz AND a 70% or better on the final.  This is a little different from what their web app will tell you-- it implies that you need a 70% overall, so if you get a 100% on the quizzes you only need a 55% on the final.  I'd shoot for the 70% on the final to be safe, but if anyone here knows for sure please chime in.

Each course at Study.com is worth 300 points and you just need 70% (210 points) to pass. Most lower level courses are 100 points for quizzes and 200 points for the final exam, so yes that means you just need 55% on the final assuming you get 100% on the quizzes. And yes, that is perfectly OK.

FYI, all the upper-level courses (and a few of the lower-level ones) also require a project or essay, which are also worth 100 points. This drops the final exam to 100 points. In those cases, you can pass the final with a 10% if you can get 100% on the quizzes and projects, though most people end up trying to max the quizzes and do well on the final exam so they have wiggle room on the project or essay since that is usually more annoying.

[dfrecore]

Both of these courses are set up with a bunch (3-15) of lesson quizzes per chapter worth a total of 100 points and a 200 point final.  According to their "How can I earn college credit?" support document, you need to get an 80% or above on every quiz AND a 70% or better on the final.  This is a little different from what their web app will tell you-- it implies that you need a 70% overall, so if you get a 100% on the quizzes you only need a 55% on the final.  I'd shoot for the 70% on the final to be safe, but if anyone here knows for sure please chime in.

I agree that this is worded strangely, considering that when I took my stats final last night, it said I needed 56% on the final to pass the course.