I graduated high school four years ago and hadn't touched math seriously since then. When my college told me I'd need to take the ALEKS placement assessment, I assumed I'd land in pre-calc at best. My initial placement put me at 38% mastery, which would have started me in College Algebra. That felt like a huge setback given my major.
I spent 3 weeks using the ALEKS prep module for about 1.5 hours per day. The adaptive learning part is genuinely useful — it identifies exactly which topics you don't have solid foundations in and keeps returning to them until they stick. My weakest areas were rational expressions, completing the square, and anything involving logarithm properties. Those got drilled relentlessly and eventually clicked.
After three weeks I retook the assessment and scored 76% mastery, which placed me into Calculus 2. I wouldn't say every hour of study was fun, but the feedback loop is tight enough that you never feel like you're spinning your wheels on stuff you already know. If you're retesting after a gap from high school, the prep module is worth doing seriously rather than just skimming.
Going from 38% to 76% in three weeks is a big jump. The adaptive algorithm wastes zero time on topics you already have, which makes the prep feel efficient even though 1.5 hours a day is a real commitment. I went from 44% to 68% in two weeks, which got me into Calc 1 instead of College Algebra.
The logarithm and exponential function topics are almost always where returning students struggle the most. Once you get the change-of-base formula and the product/quotient rules memorized, the rest of the logarithm questions become much more manageable. The prep module hammers those until they're automatic.
The rational expressions section tripped me up too. The key insight I kept forgetting was that you can't cancel individual terms across a sum — only factors. Once I internalized that distinction my scores on that topic went from about 40% to 85% in a few days of targeted drilling.
Worth noting that the ALEKS assessment is proctored differently at different schools — some require in-person proctoring for the placement to count, others accept it online. Check your school's specific policy before you prep for weeks assuming the remote version will count.
Honestly I almost quit after week two. I'd been grinding every night and my mastery kept stalling around 55% and I genuinely thought maybe I just wasn't a math person anymore. The section that really got me was the one on aleks/questions/linear equations and inequalities — I kept making the same stupid sign errors and it felt like I was going backwards. What finally clicked was slowing down and working through each problem type until I actually understood it instead of just trying to memorize steps.
If you're in that stuck phase, don't bail. I went from 55% to 81% in about ten days once things started connecting. It's not linear progress and there will be days where you feel dumb. But the prep time is worth it — I placed into Calc 2 and skipped two courses I would've had to pay for.
Just hit 72% on my practice run this morning and I honestly didn't expect to be here this fast. Three weeks ago I was stuck on stuff I thought I'd forgotten forever, but grinding through modules on aleks/questions/linear equations and inequalities really clicked something into place for me. It's wild how much comes back once you just start doing the problems instead of dreading them.
I'm planning to sit the real assessment this Friday. Nervous but I feel ready. If you're in that early stage where your percentage feels embarrassingly low, just keep going -- the jumps come faster than you think once the basics stop tripping you up.