(And no, I don't do lottery tickets...because I do math.)

Hello Jake there is a button which says something like Provide me a hint on the down part of the exercise. Whenever doing that, obviously, the exercise will count as wrong but at least you will know why. Also, whenever you have something wrong, there's a phrase at the down right part where it says something like How we did it. I'm obviously paraphrasing but what I want to say is that that feature you're saying does exist indeed. 

The tip I would recommend you when having absolutely no idea on how to do the exercise is first think. That is the beauty of math after all, it lets you think; problem solving is the most fun thing to do!

If you've spent more than 5 minutes on the exercise just put a random answer and see the solution. If you by any chance had it right, you can do what I said. If you need an screenshot let me know.

Thanks Pablo, but I don't believe that is correct. I just double-checked on the Unit Test for "Applying derivatives to analyze functions." There is no such link or button. If there were, that would precisely take care of the issue I'm talking about. Here's a screenshot:

The "report a problem" button doesn't do it, nor do I see any other way to do so. And yes, I agree with your comments about math in general, but sometimes you haven't learned something and legitimately just need to learn it before guessing. If it's a real test, sure, guess, but not in a learning environment like this where I'm doing it just to learn.

And here's a screen shot from a mastery challenge. Again, no such hint option:

Hello Jake, that is true, I do not know why I thought that. I swear I thought I saw an option like that; I will see it more in detail. Anyways, I don't know if this could solve your problem when having something wrong:

I guess you are aware of this option. That Get help button shows you the solution (you have to do it wrong obviously). When you have it right by chance, next to the star, you will see something like How we did it. 

This is the second unit test of the AP Calculus AB. 

Hey, Jake seems like the problem is with regard to scrolling down. Seems like the star thing does not work. I'm used to using the Spanish version and therefore I guess there are some differences. 


I found this by scrolling down. 

(´。＿。｀)

Now, it seems that it only works when you have something wrong. This is weird. Let's see if any support advocate is here. Sorry for the confusion.

No worries! It's not the end of the world, but it is a bit annoying, and when I've had to straight-up guess my record has been astonishingly good. I'd rather just "ask for help" and get it wrong than get it right by accident. :)

Hi Jake,

Thanks for your feedback! I know this is something that has been brought up internally before, but I'm unfortunately not aware of any plans to add a feature like this in the near future. This is definitely on our radar though!

As far as the "Get a Hint" feature goes, the functionality is a little different depending on the type of exercise. For the practice exercises, you can see the "Use a hint" button under the exercise without needing to enter an answer. Clicking this will mark the question as wrong and will give you the first step towards solving the problem.

On the quizzes and unit tests you first have to submit an incorrect answer before the "Get a Hint" button will appear. This is meant to prevents students using Khan Academy in traditional classrooms from abusing/overusing the "Get a Hint" feature on quizzes and tests.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any additional questions!

Thanks for the response, Evan. It still seems confusing to me how that would be abused in a classroom setting. If a student is marked wrong for using the hint, this seems like it'd be inherently self-limiting. I guess you could argue that they'd "overuse" it and thereby get through quickly and just fail, but I don't see how requiring them to enter an incorrect answer first in any way obviates this problem. If a student is that much of a slacker, the only advantage this system gives is that they might get more correct than they would if they overuse/abuse the "mark me wrong" button.

I really appreciate Khan Academy (I even donate) and I'm not going to die on this hill, but that answer is pretty unsatisfying.

In a traditional classroom, I'm sure many teachers would want students to at least attempt a quiz/test problem before asking for a hint. On a real test or quiz, most teachers would not offer a hint to students during the test/quiz.

We've also seen instances on the practice exercises where students use the hints feature to get all of the answers the first time, and then re-take it and just plug in the copied answers. They could still try this with the quizzes/tests, but they would have to answer incorrect answers first which makes the process a little more difficult.

I can definitely see where you're coming from though, and I think an "I don't know" button would be a good solution to the issue. That way users could skip the problem if they don't know how to do it, without entering an incorrect answer, or use the "get a hint" feature after they've already attempted the problem and gotten it wrong. I'm not sure when something like this might be added (we're a small team and the developers are already working on a massive project), but I've forwarded this helpful feedback to the product team for further consideration!

I completely agree with this. Ive been desperately trying to work out where to start learning stats but every one of these welcome tests I do, Im completely lost on certain questions and had to start throwing in wrong answers just to move on which isnt ideal. 

I was having the same problem, but I learned if you hit "report a problem" you can hit "show answer" under that without actually reporting anything and it'll mark you wrong.... I got every multiple choice that I didn't know how to do right, it makes the mastery course almost completely useless because I'll have to go back through and re-check if I know things anyway.

Yeah, this makes it hard for me, too. Usually in the unit test if it's a text box question I click the text box and then Enter and then click the Skip For Now button which pops up over the blue Check button. But there's nothing like that for multiple-choice questions that I haven't seen so far. Maybe because I'm in the lower grade courses? I'm not sure.