Download the Algebra Coach and try it free for three weeks. If you like it then you can buy it for $24.95 — a fraction of the price of an algebra textbook.  And it comes with an electronic textbook! You can't get better value.

Here is basically how the Algebra Coach works:

• You type an expression, equation, or set of equations into the Listbox. (Click here to see how.) This picture shows an example:
  
  
  
  
  
• Then you click on OK and a set of buttons appears.  (Exactly which buttons depends on what you typed in.) These buttons tell the Algebra Coach to do something to the expression.
  
  
  
  
  
• If you click on Simplify, the Algebra Coach carries out one simplification and explains what it did.
  
  
  
  
  
• Clicking on Simplify again results in another simplification with another explanation.
  
  
  
  
  
• After every step you can press the F1 key on the keyboard and the Algebra Help e-book opens up right to the paragraph that describes that step in detail. 
  
  
  
   
• The Algebra Help e-book also contains exercise problems that you can drag-and-drop into the Algebra Coach.
  
  
  
   
• The Algebra Coach can solve every kind of equation that you will encounter in high school or college algebra.  Here is a (particularly nasty looking) rational equation.  Each time you click the AutoSolve button the Algebra Coach carries out another step in the solution process. 
  
  This equation takes about 20 algebra steps before you arrive at the solution.  After each step you can press F1 and get more information from the Algebra Help e-book on that step. No more asking the teacher “how did you get to that step?”
  
  
  
  
• What you have seen is just the tip of the iceberg.  The Algebra Coach can do much, much more. To get you going the download includes:
  
  
  • The Algebra Coach program.
  • The Algebra Help e-book.
  • A help file showing how to use every feature of the Algebra Coach program; for example how to enter fractions, exponents and functions and how to set the options.  The help file also contains a quick start section — a good place to get started!
  • The Algebra Coach's Listbox comes already loaded with lots of equations and expressions.  You can use them as examples or just ignore them and start typing in your own equations and expressions. 

Click here to download the Algebra Coach.