Why Afficient should be your last choice when looking for a math program
DISCLAIMER: Nothing I say here is exaggeration or hyperbole.
As a 12 year old kid, this website was great for learning math... until i wasn't. My experience was great, at least for grades 4-8, which compared to later grades were a breeze.
First, as many others have said, the scoring system is overly punishing and the so called "demos" barely explain anything.
Second, the system is a buggy, glitchy, mess. Never in my life have I gotten more frustrated then when I got a question wrong, even though, according to the help button, it is correct! The timer on timed questions can also just not work and freeze at 0 seconds.
Third, the questions are repetitive, and they loop after a certain amount of questions. Now this might not seem too bad, but it actually allows you to cheat. How? Well, all you have to do is open two tabs of this website on your browser of choice, go to the same skill, have one of the tabs be on the TO BE LEARNED version of the skill, and refresh this tab until both tabs are on the same question. From there, use the help button on the TO BE LEARNED version of the skill, which will not affect your points or your score, and will give you the answer!
There are multiple different variations of this but they are only possible because Afficient messed up badly, and I'm not sure whether they refuse to fix it or are just unaware. This is the only thing making my progress somewhat possible, which should say something about how poorly the whole system is designed.
Last, the different modes.
TO BE LEARNED is either quite easy or damn near impossible without cheating. The "demos" mostly suck but some actually do their job and explain the concept. Overall not good, but the best out of all three.
Proficiency is just bad. There's not much to say here, but the timed Level 3 versions of each skill either give too little or too much time. The 2 review questions at the start of each set of questions might seem like a good idea, but in reality are pointless and annoying. People can review on their own, they can make their own decisions. They should not be forced to review.
Now onto the worst one, Afficiency.
This is the thing most reviewers seem to hate, and honestly, I agree. The scoring system before was punishing, but this is absolutely brutal. A single minuscule error can set you back by over 30 minutes, and you're lucky if you get more than 0.01 or 0.02 score on a correct answer. The timer freeze glitch also happens here.
A bit of advice for parents looking to improve their kid's math skills: use anything else. IXL, Khan Academy, hell, even KUMON is better then this absolute shithole of a website.
All in all, Afficient is a good idea, but it is executed horribly.
Reply from Afficient Academy
Hello Z Louise,
We appreciate your detailed review.
We are glad that your experience was positive while learning in Grades 4-8. We apologize that you have found our system to be buggy and glitchy at times. It can happen for many reasons. Whenever such a situation arises, we recommend that you report it to your account manager/teachers/our support line so that we can resolve it as soon as possible.
As far as cheating is concerned, in this day and age, numerous tools are available for those who deliberately want to cheat. However, as a student, you must remember and realize that your parents enrolled you in our program to learn and achieve academic success. Cheating will not benefit you in any aspect of life, so we advise you to focus on learning and mastering the skills. If you manage to progress in the learning program by cheating, it’s truly unfortunate, and we regret that you’re wasting your parents’ hard-earned money.
The two review questions in a Proficiency session are randomly selected to assess whether the student has retained the skills they learned previously, and they aren’t pointless; in fact, they are helpful to many students.
We understand that some students find it difficult and aren’t happy with the scoring system in the Afficiency session, which is the final stage before passing a grade with a given accuracy rate goal. When you make mistakes in the Afficiency session, your accuracy rate may go down. To improve your accuracy rate, you must solve a significant number of problems accurately, especially when your accuracy rate is over 90%. Focus, slow down, and check before submitting answers are the keys to remember.
We hope you focus on learning the skills honestly and achieve academic success. Best wishes!