DS was doing an online problem set in math. He thought it would take him 90 minutes or so. After 2 or 3 hours, he was tearing his hair out and ready to give up altogether because he simply could not get the correct answer to a problem (you have to keep trying until you get it right in this system). He had tried everything he could think of, and still the system said it was wrong.

Turned out that his original answer was x.0. It should have been x.0000.

The system did NOT state something along the lines of, "Provide your answer to 4 decimal places."

I have heard many people complain that they or their kids spend n minutes solving a math/chem/physics/whatever problem and then 3n+ minutes trying to figure out how to format the answer so that the system likes it.

I really, really, do not like these online systems. I don't like the formatting requirements, I don't like "get ten-in-a-row-right-or-start-again," I don't like the way they give you a menu of topics to do, I don't like the fact that the problems are not of the breadth and depth needed to gain a decent understanding of a subject, and so on.

Last edited by Val; 02/10/15 11:40 AM. Reason: More detail added