4.7
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Middle School Science Pro 8th Grade App Review

App Info

Price: $0.99

Overview

Middle School Science Pro 8th Grade offers two modes of play to answer five question quizlets at three levels on ten subjects.  Players compete for personal best scores, Game Center leaderboard placement, and to earn bananas that can be exchanged for game enhancements.

Features include:

  • Quizzes on ten topics, including periodic table, weather, astronomy and chemistry
  • Three levels of difficulty
  • Timed quiz performance
  • Achievements and tokens to earn for game enhancements
  • Good performance unlocks more difficult levels

Quality

Middle School Science Pro 8th Grade is a high quality app.  The games are responsive and incorporate both tapping and tilting the device to play.  The animations in the space game are simple, but fun, and the background photographs for the flashcard activity are vivid space pictures.  The app is intuitive and easy to use, yet engaging, especially for students who wish to be competitive for their own personal best or within the Game Center.

Education

This app offers great review for 10 common middle school science topics, including physics, geology, and biology.  Each topic is covered by three sets of five questions in increasing order of difficulty, for a total of thirty levels. Correctly answering the first level in a given topic unlocks the second, and good performance on the second level unlocks the third. Earlier levels can be replayed as desired for extra practice.  The quizzes are also timed, which can motivate students to increase their reading speed and accuracy, important for success on in-class tests and for efficient completion of homework.

Correct responses turn green and prompt the game to advance to the next question.  Incorrect responses turn red, then disappear and allow a second chance to answer.  The question is still scored as incorrect for the purposes of moving to the next level, but a banana is still awarded. A second incorrect response will cause the correct answer to be shown, then the next question will appear.

Developers did a good job of leveling the questions.  For example, the easy level for the Energy quiz has “Which is a renewable way to generate electricity?”  The middle level includes “A coiled spring has [potential energy]” and the most challenging level includes “When substances combine in an exothermic reaction, [energy is released].”  The answers in brackets are chosen from four multiple choice responses.  Each level draws from a question bank, so when levels are repeated, there is usually some difference in the questions presented.

Entertainment

Middle School Science Pro 8th Grade is not really intended to be entertaining, but developers managed to include features that will be likely to engage middle school students.  The competitive aspect of posting quiz scores and times to best and offering Game Center challenges and leaderboard will appeal to many teens.  Players also earn bananas for each correctly-answered quiz question, which can eventually be exchanged for game enhancements such as changing the monkey character for one of eight other options or changing the theme of background photos.  Extra banana tokens can also be purchased with real money in the App Store.

Value

For ninety-nine cents, your middle school student can practice and learn about a wealth of middle school science concepts.  The questions cover many basic concepts about the subjects, and so provide a good review of the ideas.  The organization by topic will allow students to use the app to help them study for chapter tests or review for semester or year end assessments.  The game can be reset to start the review and scoring process over again.

Child Friendliness

This app includes Game Center connections, an unprotected social media link, an email system, and unprotected links to the App Store, more apps, and ratings.  Parents and teachers should carefully monitor the app’s usage by middle school students due to these concerns.

  • NO 3rd party ads
  • YES “more apps” (unprotected and visible)
  • YES “rate app” pop-up (unprotected)
  • YES App Store and Game Center connections
Middle School Science Pro 8th Grade
Middle School Science Pro 8th Grade
Middle School Science Pro 8th Grade is an engaging way to encourage students to review middle school science concepts. Two modes of play, the ability to earn banana tokens and unlock levels, and the potential to gather game enhancements will help many students stay more engaged.
Quality
Education
Entertainment
Value
Child Friendly
4.7
Where to Buy