Struggling with College Algebra - Recommend a Tutor?

[krispy1120]

I have made it through the Aleks intermediate algebra, but I need the college algebra for my degree. I need to finish soon and it has been suggested I work with a tutor to get through the assessment. Any recommendations?

[JohnnyHeck]

ALEKS, as you know, is its own tutor. Since you just finished Int. Algebra, your initial assessment for College Algebra should be near 50%. If you look at how many topics you can complete per hour based on past ALEKS experience you will then know how many hours it will take to get to the 70% level for College Algebra. To get done fast, just put in the time!!! If you use a "tutor" for the assessment, why not just have someone log into your ALEKS account and do the assessment for you. If you are to get a degree by using unethical shortcuts, then let's not pretend otherwise. I fear we will not have ALEKS much longer if this type of discussion stays alive on public forums. Go ahead and use a tutor for non assessment topical understanding and then take the CLEP. This could be faster depending upon your learning style. My math-phobic BSAST student had to put in 240 hrs. into ALEKS to complete College Algebra starting with a 10% initial assessment. What a shame if his hard earned knowledge and credits get tarnished by the suggestion that ALEKS some users did not use ALEKS correctly.

[smf6824]

Aleks is an independent study type of credit source. If aleks alone cant teach you refer to khan academy or youtube to learn more. Keep trying.... if you fail consider straighterline or a community college for credit.

[GoodYellowDogs]

I struggled too and tried different methods. I ended up taking Excelsior College's course - Everyday Math. It has algebra, geometry, lots of stuff, but is soooo doable. You can take the test more than once. I got a B+, but could have gotten an A if I hadn't turned in an assignment late. It is a little pricey - about $1200 - but was really worth it for me.

[cookderosa]

I agree with the above comments about using Khan as well as possibly enrolling in a face to face course at the community college. You'd have access to a physical teacher, allowing you to ask questions at every step of the problem, plus all community colleges offer tutoring for free. I took the math for my degree as a class because I felt like I needed to submit homework in chunks rather than remember everything for one exam, and it worked for me. Just a suggestion! Good luck whatever you choose.

[LaterBloomer]

Just was looking up Aleks (I'm taking Beg. Alg. and some day hope to get to Col. Alg.) on the forum. (The ALEKS hell string, actually!), and came across your post, JohnnyHeck.. I think you may be jumping to the idea that someone is cheating too quickly. ALEKS is a weird duck, and I am not really learning anything. Rather, I'm a trained monkey. If I see this, I do that. I don't know krispy1120, and don't remember his/her posts, but s/he might have been wondering if having someone explain what ALEKS explains in a different way might be more helpful. I've found AlgebraLAB: Making Math and Science Connections and purplemath.com provide me with tips and tricks to handle problems. Do I still understand? Heck, no! It's just that it's easier for me to use Purplemath's box method for factoring quadratics than trying to use ALEKS' explanations.

As it is, I'm just trudging through this Beg. Alg. While my last assessment was over a 90, I hadn't gotten to all of all of the slices of the pie, so I continue to plug along. I do hate math.

[KayV]

In addition to what LaterBloomer and others suggested above, patrickjmt.com and wtamu.edu math lab are other good resources for understanding math concepts.

(And go, LaterBloomer, go! You can do this!)

[learflyer]

I'm just beginning Aleks pre-algebra and intro algebra (personal pre-req's for my required begining algebra). Just when I complete a slice of the pie or two it makes me take another assesment further slowing down the process to just get a 70%. Then when I'm done with the assesment it seems like I have started over and the pie is huge again. Does it get easier?

[dfrecore]

I also went back to PreAlgebra because it had been 25 years since I took math, and I wanted to make sure there weren't any "holes" in my memory. I remember that I worked through the entire pie, rather than assessing out, just to make sure I knew everything.

I know you can go into the Master Account (where you can change the course), and assign the assessment sooner than it would have come up naturally, but I don't think you can make it stop or slow it down. It seemed to me that an assessment came up every 11-13% increase in knowledge. I just kept plugging away and finally completed the entire pie, and assessed out at a pretty high %. But that was my goal.

I thought it did get easier as I went through everything, and I got a very high score on my final assessment for PreAlgebra, Beginning Algebra & Intermediate Algebra.

My only advice is to keep plugging away. And, if you're having any trouble, there are other places to learn a concept (Khan Academy is good), if Aleks isn't cutting it for you.

Good luck!

[Onlinestudydeg]

I used these videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Amt_-uB9QQ during my study the teacher goes to very basic and then builds you up, I wish he was my teacher.

Its long videos but it cleared lot of my basic doubts that were actually hampering me in grasping advanced topics.