Solid Gold Gnarly Math
Santa Monica Publishing Co.	Ages 10 to 14

Rating Scale 5 = great,    1 = poor

Educational Value not rated

Kid Appeal not rated

Ease of Use not rated

System Requirements

PC / Mac Price Survey

Product Support

This multifaceted program was created to entertain and amuse youngsters as it teaches them real Math. It targets kids who find Math dull and dreary, and teachers who aim to spice up their curriculum. It may also target an element we think should have no place in our educational system.

As the name on the screenshot on this page illustrates, we found that ‘spice’ is exactly what kids who use this program will discover - and why we would strongly discourage parents and schools from owning this program.

The program is divided into seven sections, Math Labs (experiments in math), Kids and Parents Guide (offering neat things for kids and parents to try), Guided Tours (of the program), Tower of Contents (six important parts of mathematics), Games, Fun, and an Index (to find particular subjects). So far so good.

Our young testers who tackled the “Games” section were initially asked to choose a friend -- an onscreen character to join in the ensuing math adventure. As our testers cycled through the list of characters, they found that many of the characters’ last names were strange and unacceptable entries in a program created for young children. They included names like: Amy Topheavy Constance Ablehand, Elizabeth Diddleygrab, Melinda Seemeover, and Abraham Peepingtom.

We attempted to contact the program's publisher to ask for an explanation -- but received no reply as of press time.

Educational Value

The math problems included in this program are sometimes interesting and compelling. In many cases, however, they are confusingly written and can therefore produce unnecessary confusion and frustration.

Kid Appeal

Our student testers were not enthusiastic about this program. Although it does contain some intriguing math problems, labs, games and puzzles, much of its presentation is amateurish and frustrating. Voice tracks are unprofessional, filled with crackles and uneven modulations. Directions are insultingly specific in some portions of the program, yet non-existent where really needed. Many of the games are boring and confusing. Although our testers were generally intrigued by the math problems, those on the younger end of the age-spectrum thought that most were too difficult. The puzzles section, which includes optical illusions, card tricks and the like, and the labs section, with math trivia and tips were generally well-liked by our testers.

Ease of Use / Install

This program is fairly simple to install. In Windows 95/98 user’s must use “Run” from the Start Menu, then type in “d:\setup.exe” where “d” is the letter used to designate the CD-ROM drive (this differs depending on the computer brand, and can be found by double clicking on “My Computer” and looking for the letter that appears under the CD-ROM icon).

In the course of our testing, we encountered numerous ease of use issues with this program. For example, students must supply their first and last names to use the program. This was a problem for some of our teacher testers who didn’t want their students' full names listed on programs that are used by multiple classes.

Many of the math questions are not specific enough for student users. The questions are vague, and students were confused about what information was to be answered. Our testers were uncertain of how to proceed in some instances. They were given no direction about the form in which to provide their answers, so that although they were correctly answering the questions, they were repeatedly marked incorrect because they were not rounding the numbers at the precise point that the program required. To illustrate the absurdity of this issue, one student was marked wrong because her whole number answer was not followed by a lone decimal point.

Best for... / Bottom-Line

WARNING: SuperKids cannot recommend this program because it contains language we find totally unacceptable for children.

See SuperKids' comparisons with other math software titles, and the Buyers Guide for current market prices of this PC-only title.

PC: Windows 3.1, 95 and 98, 486DX, 33MHz or faster cpu, 15 MB hard drive space, 8 MB RAM, CD-ROM, Sound card and speakers (optional).

Reviewed on:

Pentium266 with 64MB and 12XCD

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