Review: Brain Tuner

Overview Spending your leisure time on a math quiz may sound like a lame idea, but with its rewards for speed and accuracy. Brain Tuner is entertaining and will challenge you to improve, actually building simple arithmetic skills by forcing speedy reactions. And it’s free!

Gameplay Brain Tuner is an arithmetic quiz. Plain and simple. The app presents users with a list of either 20 or 100 equations that must each be marked right or wrong. But who says math can’t be fun? Actually, likely one of the reasons that this app has hovered at the top of the download charts is because it appears to be a productive way to kill time. Why play Super Monkey Ball when you could be growing your brain, right?

Well, not to be a downer, but it’s unlikely that Brain Tuner will beef up your GMAT score. On the other hand, it will surprise you in its ability to rejuvenate your arithmetic skills and your calculation speed. It does this by pushing users to beat their fastest quiz time, accounting for incorrect answers with time penalties. And what better way to show off to your friends than with a fast Brain Tuner time, right? Wrong. But at least it’ll give you that personal satisfaction. The app is decently integrated with the iPhone’s functions, allowing users to listen to iPod music or reject calls during play. Although, if a quiz is abandoned for the home screen or to accept a phone call it will have to be restarted, as the app wont save/pause your progress. Review There are only two possible problems with this game: it might be a little too easy and it has one sound effect that is a little high-pitched and jarring (only heard when starting a game). Other than that, this is a great free app for the purposes of challenging your arithmetic skills. I noticed subtle math skill improvements within a short time of beginning the game, although a lot of it had to do with a renewed familiarity with some of the numbers and problems. Although the 100-problem quiz option might seem daunting, that seemed like a good option to increase difficulty as it challenged me to answer quickly and correctly over an extended set of questions. The app could become a little harder if it throws in some division, an often unused skill for most Americans and something that could bring in more problem diversity. Another possible improvement could be an in-game timer that could show, in real-time, how fast you're moving. An average-time-per-question statistic might also be useful, although you could use your newly refined math skills to come up with one. Summary Brain Tuner is a simple, yet challenging game for sharpening your arithmetic skills. It’s pretty one-dimensional and it’s no Brain Challenge, but it’s free and it works as advertised.

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