Hey, Mom? Embarrassed because you can't help your child with his first-year algebra homework? Wish you'd paid better attention to that droning high school teacher? Want to be able to offer something more than sympathy and head shaking?
Pro One Algebra may be your answer - and your child's.Essentially a series of lessons in the basics of first-year algebra in computer graphic form, this product takes the unlearned from factoring to linear equations without feeling stupid in between.
Just start where you're comfortable and work up; drop back a lesson or two when the going gets too heavy; push ahead if it's too easy.
Lessons are multiple-choice, so it's possible to guess your way through an exercise, but beware: Babar the Barbarian will expose your game in just a couple of parries.
Babar is the madman one meets in a game designed to challenge your newly acquired skills. His mission is to take down the castle walls before you can work out the answer to the algebraic problem.
If you succeed, he gets hit with the single cannon you have to fire. Fail, and his minions blast through and overrun your city. Then, it's back to the lessons and practice until the puzzle solutions become automatic brain food.
There are a variety of options to help you. You can see the solution worked out if you like, pull up the calculator to help you multiply or divide big numbers, or ask for help.
Without seeming too technical or difficult, the lessons teach the brain to recognize the elements of an equation and appreciate the sequence of order to working it out. What was Greek at first becomes logical.
Pro One succeeds as a simple game; at the same time it works as a tutor that demands your attention. There is also a Pro Two that builds from where Pro One leaves off. A trigonometry program is also in the works, according to the producers.
Check it out. It adds up.