Carmen Sandiego's Think Quick Challenge

Copyright: KBkids.com

This is definitely not the best Carmen Sandiego program. It is one big, long test. The feature that allows you to input your own questions, however, makes this program valuable to those who want to create tests, based on material that has been learned away from the computer. For that purpose, this is a worthwhile program.

Carmen and her gang have been snatching up knowledge from around the world. Your child must help capture her gang, and put things back the way they should be.

This program can be played by up to four players, and set at various skill levels. Testers felt that the beginning level included is much to hard for most eight year olds, although the box says 8-12. If you input your own questions, however, you could make it appropriate for this age group. Most eight year olds do not know what a treble clef looks like, or if jovial is an antonym for sad. The program also requires a lot of reading. Because speed is of the essence in some areas, this is not a good program for a struggling reader.

Each mission starts with a rather stupid arcade game. Then your child proceeds to the question and answer screens, hosted by animated 'knowbots.' Skill areas included in the pre-prepared questions include:

• Crime Scene (a test of your visual memory)
• Science
• Arts
• English
• Geography
• Math

As a parent, or teacher, the idea of putting your own questions into a program, which actually has some visual flare, is great. There are other testing programs on the market, but they tend to create very dry looking screens with tons of text. Here, you can test your children on things which you feel are important, and that they have been learning in the classroom, or at home. Creating a question with alternate answers and some follow up information is very easy to do.

Bottom Line: A good program if you want to create tests, not a great Carmen program when compared to the rest of the line, however.

Ratings: (based on KBkids.com's 4 star rating system)

Overall: 2 1/2

BrainGain: 2 1/2

FunFactor: 2 1/2

EasePlease: 3

Buy Carmen Sandiego's ThinkQuick Challenge at Amazon!