I hate you ALEKS!!!

[Griffin]

Mathway does not run through the steps (unless you purchase) but I have found it to be the most accurate. I have algebrator which I found after pre/interm algebra to be useless. It tends to give wrong answers unless you specifically tell it what to do which defeats the purpose. Its ok to compare answers even some of the graphs are nice, overall its great for highschoolers. I heard about bagatrix. I was actually thinking about one of the calculus and stats software packages but they were just to pricey for this exercise. The crazy thing is at work we have all the programs that do this stuff for us. I'm in research nothing is done manually. We have statisticians (PhD) who set points by clinical data and let the software take it from there. Or, farm out work to consultant agencies. So once my math stuff was complete I just filed away all my notes. So much paper. And why? Will never use it again.

Even my budgets are all programmed formulas in excel. Now there's something you need to learn how to do well...excel formulas.

Haha, yes, Excel formulas are a must-have. One of the biggest things that repetition and doing my own taxes forever has taught me. That alone improved my algebra ability greatly.

Bagatrix is cool, I use their Algebra 2 Solved package mostly. Their graphing pack is useless, since the function is in all other packs, and of course you need to have/know equations for word problems.

The book I recommend often is "Forgotten Algebra" (ISBN10: 0-7641-2008-5), that is good for 6th Grade through College Algebra I. Lots of great examples, plenty of practice problems and only $17.