Customer Reviews

Math Advantage 2008 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

i needed a bit of review with basic math,
and this program offered me just what i needed. i highly recommend this program, it helped me understand how to do problems in a very simple way to understand

On retirement, I decided to review math from scratch to calculus to keep my brain active and also to see how much I had forgotten after 35 years. This tutorial has clear & concise pages of theory and examples with mini-videos on some topics. In practice, the student selects a topic, scrolls down the black on white page, and then clicks to the next page. The sequential steps in the equations are highlighted by different colors. This method does require some effort on the student to read and comprehend the information given but is much faster than reading a text book or taking a formal course because it just presents the "must know" concepts without extensive theory, group study, & homework involved. For this reason I believe it is more appropriate as a review mechanism for someone in school or already formally schooled in the subject rather than a student never before exposed to the math. The level of sophistication for presentation of the material is adequate for highschool students, somewhat basic for adults, and there are few "unnecessary" distractions with exception of the algebra booster, which has a "futuristic" theme that is somewhat annoying to adults. I am now reviewing Trig and I still recommend the program as an effective review tool or student learning aid.

This is the best investment I have ever made when it comes to purchasing learning tools and software. It has everything anyone could use to earn better grades in both highschool math classes and an excellent review for college level classes. If your like me, I havent taken a math classes in over 5yrs and remember very little from my highschool math classes because they were so boring and at times confusing. This software brings the concept of learning to life, it gives you and your child a reason for learning these concepts and lets you know how it can be helpful for you in the future. I have given this tool a much deserved 5star rating

i recently had to take a math assessment test and i needed to review my algebra and trigonometry since it had been several years since i took them.. this certainly gave me a good review on math concepts. i was too much on a hurry so i did exercises ranging from easy - hard and when i couldnt figure out how to solve them i would just go back to the concept itself. it explains fairly well the things you need to know. i cant say for a fact that this would allow you to substitute a real math class altogether. but this would indeed serve as a MATH ADVANTAGE if you coupled this with the things you learn from class.

As an adult student in need of math reviewing & uprgrading, I find this tool to be very useful indeed. You've got 10 different programs here ranging from basic math up to calculus. Included is what appears to be a good program for learning Excell. Each program is a bit different from the others in the way it is 'installed' and in using it. Although geared more towards high school students, a serious adult will have no trouble with this. Assuming of course you enjoy sitting in front of a computer and using software as a learing tool.

I gave it 4 stars only because of two things that have nothing to do with the actual instructions itself. In that area it is most excellent. The lessons are very clear (to me anyways) and fun to use with seemingly infinite quiz generating questions. The only thing that might slow you down a bit is the questions are on screen and doing math questions is easier if they are already written down on paper for you. Complex questions will require you to copy them down to avoid looking up & down at your screen. Minor inconvience.

Ok, 4 stars due to the fact that the dvd rom HAS to be in your computer for the 'install' to work. That can be a pain in the you-know-what plus wear & tear on your dvd drive. But, I solved that problem by creating an ISO image on my hard drive, and then using a virtual dvd drive to 'play' the image. (it's less than 2 gigs) Works perfect! And the best thing is I never need the actual dvd rom itself. This can be handy for students with a laptop who are on the go and don't want to keep popping the dvd in & out. Sometimes you have a small block of time that could be used for a quick study or review and having the DVD ROM image already there ready to play is really great. I used Daemon Tools to do the job. It's freeware and works great!
The other reason for the 4 stars instead of 5, is that when you exit a program it takes too long (for my liking anyways) to end. Do I really need to see everytime I exit the credits for the people responsible for creating it?
All in all, it's very excellent software and well done. Lucky for me amazon.com could not ship it to my Canadian address and I was able to find a Canadian site that sent it to me for only one dollar (canadian) shipping! At only $9 bucks US this was a steal.....of course, it's worth many more times that and even if you had to pay 3 times that, it'd still be worth it. I would highly recommend this software for anyone wanting to uprgade, review, or need a supplemental study guide for the kids.

We've only had this product for about a month, but so far it seems to be a great addition to our home school curriculum. It's easy to use and our 17 year old daughter is sailing along with this program. I would recommend it.

This review is for the 2008 version of this product because the newer versions are HORRIBLE and should be avoided.

First two thing you need to know:

1. No amount of cutesey flowery multimedia is going to make your kids excited to learn math - we ALL have to choke it down. Math is fun only AFTER you learn it. But As far as any software goes to help you learn math, this is as good as it gets. And it's fantastic and worth every penny.

2. This 2008 version is the best version you can get - avoid the newer releases of this product, they have been dumbed down and cheapened with PDF files of "For Dummies" books that replaced previously included online learning CDs/products.

Years ago, I bought the original 8-CD set of this product (for Win3.x/95) and it was fantastic. I'd still be using them for my kids if I could install them on 64-bit versions of Windows.

The original product I have was all originally made by The Learning Company, many of those CDs are still included in this new 2008 version of the product, complete with updated content and formatting.

This 2008 version is also far better in that all is installed from a DVD in better packaging. The content has been updated for modern computers, including Vista (and thus Win7) and will be good for at least another 10-12 years just because of being 64-bit Win7 compatible. Now that I have kids, and we're now 5 more versions of Windows down the road from Win95, this is the perfect upgrade I was looking for, it is far better because it has been compeltely redone even better than before.

The educational material itself is a mixture of standard text reading, voiced narration, exercises, coaching, lessons, quizes, bookmarks, graphic visuals, interacticve multimedia games that act as quizes, etc. Navigation is extremely simplistic and very effective.

Some people (including me) might not like the rather childish menu screens and presentation. It literally looks like it was developed by Nickolodeon, complete with little cartoon characters, "boink"-type sound effects and colorful "TimBurton-esque" crooked TV screens that material is presented in. It's perfect for smaller kids, but junior high school students and even 6th graders will find the appearance onscreen to be quite chidlish. If you also got it for re-learning some math as an adult (like I did), you'll just have to put up with the kiddy screens. The math, however, is just as Newton and Einstein gave it to us, so have no fear - you will be learning the math, and it will hold your hand from the basics of 2+2 all the way up to Newtonian differential calculus, which put men on the moon. This is as close to "Reader Rabbit does Rocket Science" as it's gonna get, if that's what you're looking for.


Remember: AVOID the 2009 and 2010 versions of this product - they are absolutely terrible. Get the 2008 version of this product while it is still available. I just bought mine from a 3rd party vendor from Amazon because they are no longer in stock directly on Amazon. Best 8 bucks I've ever spent.

5 stars for the product, but dropping to 4 stars because of the chidish menus and appearance throughout that are bafflingly aimed at the toddler age group instead of the "teen plus" age group this level of content is clearly intended for.

The description for the program was more hype than anything. There wasn't as much interaction ivolved with problems as it's made out to be. I remember back in the 90's there were some good programs that let you do the bulk of the problem on within the program and it even gave you tests and spit out some stats. There was more reading than anything, I felt. After an hour, I uninstalled. Didn't really feel this product was for me. On the other hand, I gave the program to a friend and he loves it. I would download a trial version if it was available, then go from there.

Great tool for learning; however it is NOT compatible with my anti-virus, so I had to install it on a computer that doesn't go on-line. I contacted the makers of the product and they are suppose to be working with the makers of the anti-virus program to resolve the issue; however, its been several weeks since I've heard from them. FYI, my anti-virus program is CA Security Center.

I ordered this for my middle school kids to get a good start on pre-algebra and algebra this summer. They both complain about how boring it is, and it is a fight to get them to use it. According to my kids, most of it is just text with a few short quizzes here and there. Why isn't there a Reader Rabbit Algebra!?