Mind Power Math: High School Reviewer's Comments

Mind Power Math High School, offered by The Learning Company, is a good resource for quick geometry information. It contains an alphabetical list of formulas and rules that we found particularly useful and it thoroughly explains every problem and answer presented.

However, most information is related through text with a graphic, it does not include games.

Teaching Tools:  

This program presents a series of geometry topics with a corresponding multiple–choice quiz. The quizzes include math facts and hints and fully explained solutions.

The math facts section is extremely useful; it contains an alphabetical list of geometry words, formulas and rules.

Topics Covered:  

This product, formally sold as The Princeton Review: Math Library, presents general math, Algebra I and II, Statistics, Geometry, Trigonometry and Calculus in six CD ROMs.

The geometry section includes 11 chapters of subjects ranging from reasoning, shapes, coordinates to transformations.

It has a good reasoning section that relates instruction on deductive, inductive, indirect, conditional statements and variants as well as Venn diagrams.

The formula resource areas include over 25 commonly used formulas, so you can easily look up the formula for finding the volume of a sphere or the slope of a line quickly. The rules area includes over 25 rules including triangle congruence theorems, circle secant theorems and parallelogram properties.

Ease of Use/Homework Help:  

This product is easy to use but ran a bit slow on our system. This is the only product this high on the review list that will run on Macs.

In terms of homework help, you can quickly look up subject areas, formulas and rules on a particular subject. For our sample homework problem, we were looking for the length of the median in a trapezoid. Through this program, we looked into the trapezoid rule area and quickly found out how to solve the problem, however there was not a sample problem available or a formula. It also did not relate which theorem or property was used to solve the problem.

Help/Documentation:  

This program comes with excellent product support including an inter–program user manual, online FAQs and access to telephone and email technical support.

Summary:  

Mind Power Math comprehensively covers a broad range of math subjects and is a good product for older children or adults who need to renew their math skills for placement or college entrance exams.