IXL LearningReviews of ixl.com

the smartscore is trash

Jack Traweek April 26, 2026 Why IXL is Bad for Kids I think that almost all kids that are reading this agree that IXL is the WORST, but I m not just gonna say oh, IXL sucks I m actually going to give multiple reasons why. For 1, I myself got so mad and frustrated that I almost threw my device at the wall, and this is because of the smart score system that gives you less and less points as you get farther in. But when you get a question wrong you get 5-9 points taken away, you see where I m going, when you get a singe question wrong in the final stretch then you get sent back nearly 7 points and it takes forever to finish 1 lesson which is why it s so frustrating and such rage bait. Another reason is that IXL is bad is because the community is split into 2 the adults and the kids, the adults outnumber the kids nearly 3-5 to 1, and kids don t know how to speak up and stand up for themselves about how they think that IXL is bad for their mental health and how it s stressful. This means that kids learn to keep to themselves instead of talking about how they feel which in turn can impact their social lives in a negative way. IXL and schools are teaming to make kids do something bad for kids. This is not okay because schools are supposed to make kids feel secure, not to make kids feel stressed and irritated. That s why no school should be using IXL, the worst learning platform since IReady.

I was using it and my teacher told me to use it because we had state testing the next day. I got everything perfect in the 10 questions i could have and i only got a 68 in the smart score... 10/10 is a 100, right? Not to IXL. The smart score thing is really stupid, just let me get a 100 if I get all the questions right. That simple.

It is stressful for mental health. Paul Munchkin is a mistake.

IXL is often hailed by educators and administrators as a revolutionary tool for personalized learning, yet it frequently stands as one of the most universally disliked platforms by the very students forced to use it. While the platform covers a vast array of subjects and provides an endless stream of practice problems, its core design is fundamentally flawed. Instead of fostering a genuine love for learning or promoting deep conceptual understanding, IXL operates on a system of repetitive drudgery, punishing scoring mechanics, and intense academic anxiety. By prioritizing rote memorization over comprehension and utilizing a counterproductive grading algorithm, IXL proves itself to be an incredibly counterproductive educational tool. The primary defect of IXL lies in its infamous "SmartScore" system, a grading algorithm that values perfection over progress. To master a skill, students must reach a score of 100. However, the algorithm does not calculate this score based on the percentage of correct answers. Instead, it operates on a system of heavy penalties. Answering a question correctly might raise a student's score by just one or two points, especially as they near the goal of 100. Conversely, a single incorrect answer can instantly dock the score by ten, fifteen, or even twenty points. This creates a digital Sisyphean task. A student can work diligently for half an hour, answering dozens of questions correctly, only to make one minor typo or misread a single word and see all of their hard work instantly erased. This scoring system does not teach resilience; rather, it teaches frustration and breeds a deep-seated resentment toward the subject matter. Furthermore, IXL’s pedagogical approach is heavily rooted in behaviorist drill-and-practice methods that modern educational theory has largely moved away from. The website presents students with isolated, repetitive problems devoid of real-world context or engaging instruction. There are no interactive tutorials, no engaging videos, and very little conceptual scaffolding to help a struggling student understand why a certain formula works or how a grammatical rule applies to broader writing. When a student gets a question wrong, the site offers a text-based explanation of that specific problem. However, for many learners, reading a block of dry text after already failing a question is not an effective way to learn. Without active teaching or varied problem-solving strategies, IXL reduces complex subjects like mathematics and language arts to a game of brute-force memorization and pattern recognition. Finally, the psychological toll that IXL inflicts on students cannot be overlooked. Education should ideally be a safe space to make mistakes, as failure is a critical component of the learning process. IXL completely subverts this philosophy by making mistakes feel like a catastrophic setback. The agonizing visual of the SmartScore dropping causes immense stress, anxiety, and tears for countless students every day. It fosters an environment where students are terrified of clicking the submit button. When homework becomes a source of genuine dread and panic, the educational tool has failed its primary objective. In conclusion, IXL represents the worst of what educational technology has to offer when it prioritizes rigid metrics over human learning. Its punishing scoring algorithm creates an endless loop of frustration, its drill-and-kill methodology ignores modern instructional design, and its high-stakes environment induces unnecessary anxiety in young learners. While it may succeed in keeping students busy and generating clean data charts for school administrators, it does so at the cost of student morale and genuine engagement. For a website intended to help students grow, IXL ultimately succeeds only in making them want to give up.

this app is bad instead of the teachers teaching you they make you do ixl for a hour it is bad 1 out of 5 do not recommend

TEACHERS NEED TO WAKE UP. I DON'T THINK IT'S NORMAL THAT STUDENTS ARE MORE STRESSED WHEN DOING IXL MORE THAN EXAMS. THE SMART SCORE AND EXPLANATIONS ARE COMPLETELY USELESS. I WOULD RATHER DO A FIVE-PARAGRAPH ESSAY THAN DO THIS, AND PARENTS THAT ARE SAYING IXL IS GREAT MAKE OUR CHILDREN DO MIDDLE SCHOOL IXL AND WATCH THEIR FACES LOOK AT THE COMPUTER WITH DISAPIONTMENT AND TERROR.

It had only one way of writing a triangle, and it changed every time. Scams..