what can you compare homework to

101 Compare and Contrast Essay Topics

Great Ideas for Essays

Teaching Resources
An Introduction to Teaching
Tips & Strategies
Policies & Discipline
Community Involvement
School Administration
Technology in the Classroom
Teaching Adult Learners
Issues In Education
Becoming A Teacher
Assessments & Tests
Elementary Education
Secondary Education
Special Education
Homeschooling
M.Ed., Curriculum and Instruction, University of Florida
B.A., History, University of Florida

Compare and contrast essays are taught in school for many reasons. For one thing, they are relatively easy to teach, understand, and format. Students can typically understand the structure with just a short amount of instruction. In addition, these essays allow students develop critical thinking skills to approach a variety of topics.

Brainstorming Tip

One fun way to get students started brainstorming their compare and contrast essays is to create a Venn diagram , where the overlapping sections of the circle contain similarities and the non-overlapping areas contain the differing traits.

Following is a list of 101 topics for compare and contrast essays that you are welcome to use in your classroom. As you look through the list you will see that some items are academic in nature while others are included for interest-building and fun writing activities.

Apple vs. Microsoft
Coke vs. Pepsi
Renaissance Art vs. Baroque Art
Antebellum Era vs. Reconstruction Era in American History
Childhood vs. Adulthood
Star Wars vs. Star Trek
Biology vs. Chemistry
Astrology vs. Astronomy
American Government vs. British Government (or any world government)
Fruits vs. Vegetables
Dogs vs. Cats
Ego vs. Superego
Christianity vs. Judaism (or any world religion )
Republican vs. Democrat
Monarchy vs. Presidency
US President vs. UK Prime Minister
Jazz vs. Classical Music
Red vs. White (or any two colors)
Soccer vs. Football
North vs. South Before the Civil War
New England Colonies vs. Middle Colonies OR vs. Southern Colonies
Cash vs. Credit Cards
Sam vs. Frodo Baggins
Gandalf vs. Dumbledore
Fred vs. Shaggy
Rap vs. Pop
Articles of Confederation vs. U.S. Constitution
Henry VIII vs. King Louis XIV
Stocks vs. Bonds
Monopolies vs. Oligopolies
Communism vs. Capitalism
Socialism vs. Capitalism
Diesel vs. Petroleum
Nuclear Power vs. Solar Power
Saltwater Fish vs. Freshwater Fish
Squids vs. Octopus
Mammals vs. Reptiles
Baleen vs. Toothed Whales
Seals vs. Sea Lions
Crocodiles vs. Alligators
Bats vs. Birds
Oven vs. Microwave
Greek vs. Roman Mythology
Chinese vs. Japanese
Comedy vs. Drama
Renting vs. Owning
Mozart vs. Beethoven
Online vs. Traditional Education
North vs. South Pole
Watercolor vs. Oil
1984 vs. Fahrenheit 451
Emily Dickinson vs. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
W.E.B. DuBois vs. Booker T. Washington
Strawberries vs. Apples
Airplanes vs. Helicopters
Hitler vs. Napoleon
Roman Empire vs. British Empire
Paper vs. Plastic
Italy vs. Spain
Baseball vs. Cricket
Jefferson vs. Adams
Thoroughbreds vs. Clydesdales
Spiders vs. Scorpions
Northern Hemisphere vs. Southern Hemisphere
Hobbes vs. Locke
Friends vs. Family
Dried Fruit vs. Fresh
Porcelain vs. Glass
Modern Dance vs. Ballroom Dancing
American Idol vs. The Voice
Reality TV vs. Sitcoms
Picard vs. Kirk
Books vs. Movies
Magazines vs. Comic Books
Antique vs. New
Public vs. Private Transportation
Email vs. Letters
Facebook vs. Twitter
Coffee vs. an Energy Drink
Toads vs. Frogs
Profit vs. Non-Profit
Boys vs. Girls
Birds vs. Dinosaurs
High School vs. College
Chamberlain vs. Churchill
Offense vs. Defense
Jordan vs. Bryant
Harry vs. Draco
Roses vs. Carnations
Poetry vs. Prose
Fiction vs. Nonfiction
Lions vs. Tigers
Vampires vs. Werewolves
Lollipops vs. popsicles
Summer vs. Winter
Recycling vs. Landfill
Motorcycle vs. Bicycle
Halogen vs. Incandescent
Newton vs. Einstein
. Go on vacation vs. Staycation
Rock vs. Scissors
50 Argumentative Essay Topics
100 Persuasive Essay Topics
Write a Compare and Contrast Essay
Beef Up Critical Thinking and Writing Skills: Comparison Essays
How to Teach the Compare and Contrast Essay
Venn Diagrams to Plan Essays and More
Topical Organization Essay
501 Topic Suggestions for Writing Essays and Speeches
Writing About Literature: Ten Sample Topics for Comparison & Contrast Essays
Comparing and Contrasting in English
Organizing Compare-Contrast Paragraphs
25 Essay Topics for American Government Classes
Compare-Contrast Prewriting Chart
Expository Essay Genre With Suggested Prompts
Comparison in Composition
Teaching Comparative and Superlative Forms to ESL Students

85 Compare and Contrast Essay Topics

85 Inspirational Compare and Contrast Essay Topics

Compare and Contrast Essay Topics: How to Choose?

There are a few helpful ideas that can help to choose great compare and contrast essay topics . Check them below to learn more.

When choosing an essay topic, think about the target audience beforehand. Look through actual issues which have a chance to hook your readers' attention. After brainstorming ideas, find things for the effective comparison.
Remember to choose objects belonging to one sphere. Use all pieces of advice you can find while choosing compare and contrast essay topics (unlike cause and effect essay topics ). First of all, analyze things that look the same but have at least one difference, for example, meals cooked by mom and semi-finished ones found in a supermarket.
The comparative approach methods point out the already established views on certain phenomena, and facts can be reconsidered. Your essay should help discover features that are specific to a particular object or phenomenon. Thus, it promotes a deeper study of things. Also, remember to search for distinctive features at different levels of research.
The leading principle of picking a good topic is finding some characteristic feature similar to both objects.

Best Compare and Contrast Essay Topics

Have no ideas what to compare or wondering, "What are some good compare and contrast essay topics?". Get inspired by checking out the list for different levels of education.

Compare and Contrast Essay Topics for Kids

Fruit vs. vegetables
Linux or Windows
Tablet vs. paper textbooks
Classical vs. pop music
Cinemas vs. theatres
Active or passive rest
Playing inside or outside
Is your character similar to your parents'?
Doctor and teacher
Swimming vs. flying
Tennis vs. badminton
Football and basketball
American soccer vs. basketball
Ballet vs. breakdance

Compare and Contrast Essay Topics for Middle School

We have divided these topics by subjects for your convenience.

World History

Civil World War I and II
Two famous historical leaders
Politics in America now and twenty years ago
European History and US history
Paleolithic and Neolithic periods
Two public people
Economic development of America and China
Two personalities who contributed to the history of England
Two plays by Shakespeare
Quotes of the well-known personalities
Two books of the classical writers
Two writers of prose
Prose or poetry
Russian vs. English writers: choose the two most famous in the same genre
Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte.
Two works of Oscar Wilde
Romeo and Juliet vs. Macbeth of Shakespeare
Tolkien vs. Joan Rowling
Two characters from the Harry Potter books

You will find the Scarlet essay themes in one of our blogs. Choose something interesting for yourself and create an outstanding essay.

Popular Things to Compare

Black vs. white: best color for formal meetings
Apple vs. pear
Getting vs. presenting gifts: what is more pleasant?
Sunbathing at the seaside vs. going sightseeing
Short vs. long hair
Your lifestyle and your favorite celebrity
Coffee or tea
Cinnamon compared to sugar
Cats or dogs

Compare and Contrast Essay Topics for High School Students

Great compare and contrast essay topics are listed below. And do not miss the chance to look through other exciting ideas for a narrative story . Find them in our libeary.

IT and Gadgets

Compare iOS to Android
E-mail vs. usual post
Buying things online or shopping at malls
Skype vs. phone communication
Smart house vs. common home
Samsung compared to Apple
Hardware and software.
iPhone 11 vs. iPhone 12

Topics about Influential People

Hitler and Churchill
Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump
Ryan Reynolds or Donald Glover.
Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov
Abraham Lincoln and John Franklin Kennedy

Natural sciences

Volcano eruption and earthquakes: what causes more damage?
Geology and mineralogy
Einstein theories

Compare and Contrast Essay Topics for College

Here you will find some outstanding compare and contrast essay topics for college students.

Compare a virus to infection
Vitamins from foods vs. vitamins from complexes: which are better for health?
People DNA vs. animals
Covid-19 compared to flu
Women vs. men occupying managerial positions: who is more successful?
Two most profitable goods and services markets
Cola and Pepsi: management techniques

Easy Compare and Contrast Essay Topics

Sports or diets: what is more effective for weight loss?
Audiobooks or paper books
Fashion today and twenty years before
Silver and gold
Chocolate and marmalade candies
Autumn vs. spring
Love vs. friendship
Cars vs. bikes
Watching horror films on TV vs. on the large cinema screen
New branded clothes vs. second-hand clothes
Diets vs. drugs for weight loss
Cooking video recipes vs. traditional cookery books
Money vs. gift for a birthday
Jeans or dresses for a party

How to Write a Compare and Contrast Essay?

Writing a compare and contrast essay considers the characteristics of the studied objects using the necessary criteria. The basic approach is quite simple: the definition and estimation of individual social, economic, political, or other phenomena to discover distinctive features. After that, a student is supposed to conclude the similarity of their content, the general orientation, etc. It makes data usage from one object while studying the other. Suppose in the course of the research, some discrepancies were found. In that case, this allows one to point out the peculiarity, specificity, and uniqueness of one phenomenon or object to another one.

Compare and Contrast Essay Outline

It is pretty important to adhere to a basic compare and contrast essay outline to write an excellent paper. Its structure doesn't have many differences from other essay types. 1. Introduction Introduce the subject Provide background information on the subject you are comparing and contrasting Add a strong thesis statement that expresses your viewpoint 2. Main body Provide your main arguments for each subject you compare Make sure you are comparing (discussing similarities) as well as contrasting (discussing differences) Do not just state the characteristics of one issue and then the other. Make sure to analyze them Discuss only one similarity or difference per paragraph Express your ideas clearly and logically Use transitional elements 3. Conclusion Summarize the main points of the paper. Do not just repeat them, but synthesize Restate thesis statement Provide general conclusion Provide areas of the topic for further research or investigation (if needed).

Effective Writing Tips

Are you stuck in front of an empty word document and have no idea how to write a compare and contrast essay?

First, go through the basics. This writing type aims to set objects, people, places, events, etc., side by side and define similarities and differences.
After you have sorted things out, hit books or the internet searching for relevant information and examples of similar essays. Most themes will require some specific knowledge, which means that the search for facts, statistics, and additional details will take much time. Brainstorm ideas and make notes. Make up a list of common features, characteristics, qualities. Don't miss details that can play a significant role.
You shouldn't necessarily talk about all features if there are too many. Just choose things that matter the most and start writing following a specific structure format.
Remember to compare, i.e., discuss similarities and contrast - talk about the differences.
Your work will be well-organized if it consists of all the necessary essay parts: an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. An effective structure should include at least these five paragraphs. Each section performs its own function. A short introductory part familiarizes your reader with the topic and makes it clear what will be next.
Create an outline for your essay. It will serve as a plan and a guide to your writing.
Remember how important it is to use eye-catchy first sentences to attract the attention of the audience. You may use some funny stories or real-life examples as a hook. Then don't waste time and proceed to the text body revealing significant aspects with your findings concerning everyday things and different features. Finally, summarize and let your reader see the goal you wanted to achieve. Your audience shouldn't doubt the usefulness of time spent on reading your paper.
Do not forget to proofread your essay for grammar and stylistic mistakes and check it for plagiarism.

Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Don't know how to write a compare and contrast essay? Consider successful samples first. If, while reading an example, you wish to find out more about the objects' comparison, then its author has done a proper job. To say that the theme must be interesting is like saying nothing. It should be inspiring. Moving forward, think about the apparent similarities and differences. The crucial reason why many writers fail is that they don't go further. However, it is a must to study objects thoroughly so that no hidden edges are left. Use critical thinking and look at the familiar thing from an entirely new angle. Check out a couple of excellent compare and contrast essay examples to help you with essay writing and get the main idea:

Compare and contrast essay example: “Winter vs Summer”

Historic essay sample: Napoleon and Kutuzov

Interesting Things to Compare and Contrast

Choosing outstanding compare and contrast essay topics can sometimes be difficult and time-consuming. Hopefully, this guide has made things about the comparison contrast essay clear for you. In case you don't want to waste time writing papers or conduct topic research, consider using our service. Our well-educated and experienced writers have all the necessary knowledge to provide you with the expected results within the deadline. They aren't magicians, but their pens work magic. Any sphere and level of complexity will be dealt with successfully. We appreciate those who trust us and offer unique services at affordable prices. Just place your order, and we will do our best. Enjoy an easy customer-friendly procedure of custom paper service. You will never regret using our high-quality essay service. Our main priority is to make your paper writing experience as enjoyable as possible.

Are you stuck in a creative dead zone and can't find the best sociology research paper topics? You are not alone in this. We understand why making the right choice and know how to focus on homework is so important. After all, it's a fascinating topic that allows students to write a winning sociology...

Whether you are a high-school, middle-school, or university student, you will surely need to write an informative essay and knowhow to focus on school work. When this time comes, most students get stuck in choosing the best topic or a research question for their informative essay. To make this time-...

“He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.”– Joseph ConradThat is one of the golden rules every student/young writer should memorize to write a persuasive paper that will be mean...

Skip to Nav
Skip to Main
Skip to Footer

What Kinds of Homework Seem to be Most Effective?

Please try again

If you made it past the headline, you're likely a student, concerned parent, teacher or, like me, a nerd nostalgist who enjoys basking in the distant glow of Homework Triumphs Past (second-grade report on Custer's Last Stand, nailed it!).

Whoever you are, you're surely hoping for some clarity in the loud, perennial debate over whether U.S. students are justifiably exhausted and nervous from too much homework — even though some international comparisons suggest they're sitting comfortably at the average.

Well, here goes. I've mapped out six, research-based polestars that should help guide you to some reasonable conclusions about homework.

How much homework do U.S. students get?

The best answer comes from something called the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP . In 2012, students in three different age groups — 9, 13 and 17 — were asked, "How much time did you spend on homework yesterday?" The vast majority of 9-year-olds (79 percent) and 13-year-olds (65 percent) and still a majority of 17-year-olds (53 percent) all reported doing an hour or less of homework the day before.

Another study from the National Center for Education Statistics found that high school students who reported doing homework outside of school did, on average, about seven hours a week.

If you're hungry for more data on this — and some perspective — check out this exhaustive report put together last year by researcher Tom Loveless at the Brookings Institution.

An hour or less a day? But we hear so many horror stories! Why?

The fact is, some students do have a ton of homework. In high school we see a kind of student divergence — between those who choose or find themselves tracked into less-rigorous coursework and those who enroll in honors classes or multiple Advanced Placement courses. And the latter students are getting a lot of homework. In that 2012 NAEP survey, 13 percent of 17-year-olds reported doing more than two hours of homework the previous night. That's not a lot of students, but they're clearly doing a lot of work.

That also tracks with a famous survey from 2007 — from MetLife — that asked parents what they think of their kids' homework load. Sixty percent said it was just right. Twenty-five percent said their kids are getting too little. Just 15 percent of parents said their kids have too much homework.

Research also suggests that the students doing the most work have something else in common: income. "I think that the debate over homework in some ways is a social class issue," says Janine Bempechat, professor of human development at Wheelock College. "There's no question that in affluent communities, children are really over-taxed, over-burdened with homework."

But the vast majority of students do not seem to have inordinate workloads. And the ones who do are generally volunteering for the tough stuff. That doesn't make it easier, but it does make it a choice.

Do we know how much homework students in other countries are doing?

Sort of. Caveats abound here. Education systems and perceptions of what is and isn't homework can vary remarkably overseas. So any comparison is, to a degree, apples-to-oranges (or, at least, apples-to-pears). A 2012 report from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development pegged the U.S. homework load for 15-year-olds at around six hours per week. That's just above the study's average. It found that students in Hong Kong are also doing about six hours a week. Much of Europe checks in between four and five hours a week. In Japan, it's four hours. And Korea's near the bottom, at three hours.

How much homework is too much?

Better yet, how much is just right? Harris Cooper at Duke University has done some of the best work on homework. He and his team reviewed dozens of studies, from 1987 to 2003, looking for consensus on what works and what doesn't. A common rule of thumb, he says, is what's called the 10-minute rule. Take the child's grade and multiply by 10. So first-graders should have roughly 10 minutes of homework a night, 40 minutes for fourth-graders, on up to two hours for seniors in high school. A lot of of schools use this. Even the National PTA officially endorses it.

Homework clearly improves student performance, right?

Not necessarily. It depends on the age of the child. Looking over the research, there's little to no evidence that homework improves student achievement in elementary school. Then again, the many experts I spoke with all said the same thing: The point of homework in those primary grades isn't entirely academic. It's about teaching things like time-management and self-direction.

But, by high school the evidence shifts. Harris Cooper's massive review found, in middle and high school, a positive correlation between homework and student achievement on unit tests. It seems to help. But more is not always better. Cooper points out that, depending on the subject and the age of the student, there is a law of diminishing returns. Again, he recommends the 10-minute rule.

What kinds of homework seem to be most effective?

This is where things get really interesting. Because homework should be about learning, right? To understand what kinds of homework best help kids learn, we really need to talk about memory and the brain.

Let's start with something called the spacing effect . Say a child has to do a vocabulary worksheet. The next week, it's a new worksheet with different words and so on. Well, research shows that the brain is better at remembering when we repeat with consistency, not when we study in long, isolated chunks of time. Do a little bit of vocabulary each night, repeating the same words night after night.

Similarly, a professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, Henry "Roddy" Roediger III , recommends that teachers give students plenty of little quizzes, which he says strengthen the brain's ability to remember. Don't fret. They can be low-stakes or no-stakes, says Roediger: It's the steady recall and repetition that matter. He also recommends, as homework, that students try testing themselves instead of simply re-reading the text or class notes.

There's also something known as interleaving . This is big in the debate over math homework. Many of us — myself included — learned math by focusing on one concept at a time, doing a worksheet to practice that concept, then moving on.

Well, there's evidence that students learn more when homework requires them to choose among multiple strategies — new and old — when solving problems. In other words, kids learn when they have to draw not just from what they learned in class that day but that week, that month, that year.

One last note: Experts agree that homework should generally be about reinforcing what students learned in class (this is especially true in math). Sometimes it can — and should — be used to introduce new material, but here's where so many horror stories begin.

Tom Loveless, a former teacher, offers this advice: "I don't think teachers should ever send brand-new material that puts the parent in the position of a teacher. That's a disaster. My own personal philosophy was: Homework is best if it's material that requires more practice but they've already received initial instruction."

Or, in the words of the National PTA: "Homework that cannot be done without help is not good homework."

A community blog focused on educational excellence and equity

About the topic

Explore classroom guidance, techniques, and activities to help you meet the needs of ALL students.

most recent articles

Shaking Up High School Math

Executive Functions and Literacy Skills in the Classroom

Connecting and Communicating With Families to Help Break Down Barriers to Learning

Discover new tools and materials to integrate into you instruction.

Culture, Community, and Collaboration

Vertical Progression of Math Strategies – Building Teacher Understanding

“Can I have this? Can I have that?”

Find instructions and recommendations on how to adapt your existing materials to better align to college- and career-ready standards.

To Teach the Truth

Helping Our Students See Themselves and the World Through the Books They Read in Our Classrooms

Textbooks: Who Needs Them?

Learn what it means for instructional materials and assessment to be aligned to college- and career-ready standards.

Let’s Not Make Power ELA/Literacy Standards and Talk About Why We Didn’t

What to Consider if You’re Adopting a New ELA/Literacy Curriculum

Not Your Mom’s Professional Development

Delve into new research and perspectives on instructional materials and practice.

Summer Reading Club 2023

Synergy between College and Career Readiness Standards-Aligned Instruction and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Children Should be Seen AND Heard

Submissions Guidelines
About the Blog

Designing Effective Homework

Best practices for creating homework that raises student achievement

Homework. It can be challenging…and not just for students. For teachers, designing homework can be a daunting task with lots of unanswered questions: How much should I assign? What type of content should I cover? Why aren’t students doing the work I assign? Homework can be a powerful opportunity to reinforce the Shifts in your instruction and promote standards-aligned learning, but how do we avoid the pitfalls that make key learning opportunities sources of stress and antipathy?

The nonprofit Instruction Partners recently set out to answer some of these questions, looking at what research says about what works when it comes to homework. You can view their original presentation here , but I’ve summarized some of the key findings you can put to use with your students immediately.

Does homework help?

Consistent homework completion has been shown to increase student achievement rates—but frequency matters. Students who are given homework regularly show greater gains than those who only receive homework sporadically. Researchers hypothesize that this is due to improved study skills and routines practiced through homework that allow students to perform better academically.

Average gains on unit tests for students who completed homework were six percentile points in grades 4–6, 12 percentile points in grades 7–9, and an impressive 24 percentile points in grades 10–12; so yes, homework (done well) does work. [i]

What should homework cover?

While there is little research about exactly what types of homework content lead to the biggest achievement gains, there are some general rules of thumb about how homework should change gradually over time.

In grades 1–5, homework should:

Reinforce and allow students to practice skills learned in the classroom
Help students develop good study habits and routines
Foster positive feelings about school

In grades 6–12, homework should:

Prepare students for engagement and discussion during the next lesson
Allow students to apply their skills in new and more challenging ways

The most often-heard criticism of homework assignments is that they simply take too long. So how much homework should you assign in order to see results for students? Not surprisingly, it varies by grade. Assign 10-20 minutes of homework per night total, starting in first grade, and then add 10 minutes for each additional grade. [ii] Doing more can result in student stress, frustration, and disengagement, particularly in the early grades.

Why are some students not doing the homework?

There are any number of reasons why students may not complete homework, from lack of motivation to lack of content knowledge, but one issue to watch out for as a teacher is the impact of economic disparities on the ability to complete homework.

Multiple studies [iii] have shown that low-income students complete homework less often than students who come from wealthier families. This can lead to increased achievement gaps between students. Students from low-income families may face additional challenges when it comes to completing homework such as lack of access to the internet, lack of access to outside tutors or assistance, and additional jobs or family responsibilities.

While you can’t erase these challenges for your students, you can design homework that takes those issues into account by creating homework that can be done offline, independently, and in a reasonable timeframe. With those design principles in mind, you increase the opportunity for all your students to complete and benefit from the homework you assign.

The Big Picture

Perhaps most importantly, students benefit from receiving feedback from you, their teacher, on their assignments. Praise or rewards simply for homework completion have little effect on student achievement, but feedback that helps them improve or reinforces strong performance does. Consider keeping this mini-table handy as you design homework:

The act of assigning homework doesn’t automatically raise student achievement, so be a critical consumer of the homework products that come as part of your curriculum. If they assign too much (or too little!) work or reflect some of these common pitfalls, take action to make assignments that better serve your students.

[i] Cooper, H. (2007). The battle over homework (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

[ii] Cooper, H. (1989a). Homework .White Plains, NY: Longman.

[iii] Horrigan, T. (2015). The numbers behind the broadband ‘homework gap’ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/20/the-numbers-behind-the-broadband-homework-gap/ and Miami Dade Public Schools. (2009). Literature Review: Homework. http://drs.dadeschools.net/LiteratureReviews/Homework.pdf

ELA / Literacy
Elementary School
High School
Mathematics
Middle School

Stay In Touch

Like what you’re reading? Sign up to receive emails about new posts, free resources, and advice from educators.

Let’s talk

How can we help you?

Email Address

High-quality homework: How to assign the right amount, and the most effective formats of homework for the 2019-2020 school year

by Chandra Williams | Jul 16, 2019

SHARE THIS STORY

Although studies have shown that homework offers some benefits to students, assigning too much homework can actually cause students to experience higher stress levels and physical and mental health issues . In this article, we’ll discuss guidelines you can use to assign high quality homework for your students.

What is the “ten-minute homework guideline?”

The National PTA and National Education Association support the “ ten minute homework guideline ,” which suggests each student should have about ten minutes of homework per grade level. First-grade students should have between ten to twenty minutes of homework, with an additional ten minutes added for each subsequent grade level.

The ten-minute homework rule offers several benefits to students, including:

Reduces the likelihood of students becoming overwhelmed.
Prevents diminishing returns for academic success.
Reduces the impact of the “homework gap,” a term indicating the disproportionate challenges faced by students who do not have access to the internet and other resources to complete homework assignments at their homes.
Reduces impact on students who naturally take longer to complete homework assignments.

What purposes should homework accomplish?

Most homework assignments fall into one of the following four categories :

Practice — Students have learned skills in class and practice using those skills on their own at home. For example, students learned the order of operations in math class and practice using these skills by solving some multi-step equations.
Preparation — Students prepare to learn about a new concept in class the next day. For example, students read the first chapter of a new book which will be discussed in tomorrow’s English class.
Study — Students review content they have already learned and practiced to prepare for a formative, unit, or benchmark assessment.
Extend or Elaborate — Students have learned about a general concept in class, and complete individual work to expand their knowledge on the topic. For example, students learned about the formation of the United States in class, and each student will individually create a project exploring the history of a different state.

When students’ complete homework for the purpose of practicing skills, they may have single-skill assignments or cumulative assignments.

Single-skill assignments are most effective when students need to master the skill taught in class. For example, students may list the steps of the scientific method.
Cumulative assignments require students to decide which skill they need to use when solving a particular problem, and then properly use the skill. For example, students are presented with an experiment, must determine which steps in the scientific method need to be completed, and then must complete the experiment and demonstrate its results.

What is the most effective type of homework?

Existing studies have found that student performance is most positively affected when homework is used to build fluency, master new concepts, and proficiency. Students retain information better when the practice is conducted over several shorter sessions, rather than through one marathon session. Additionally, students should be able to use the same processes and skills with their homework assignments, which were modeled and demonstrated during class. In other words, homework assignments should be presented in the same format as classroom practices.

What are best practices for assigning homework?

Research suggests that homework is most effective when:.

Assignments promote curiosity, leading to “ autonomous, self-directed learning .”
Students have already “ demonstrated competence in the skill…before being asked to do it independently.”
Teachers consider some students do not have access to the internet, a quiet working space, or homework help from parents or a tutor.
Students understand the purpose of completing each homework assignment.
Teachers provide feedback quickly, minimizing the chance for students to forget the assignment before they learn their scores.
Teachers keep in mind that middle school and high school students may be assigned homework from all of their classes, and the ten-minute homework guideline applies to the combined homework load.

FILED UNDER

Enrichment , Equity and Excellence , School Improvement , School Leaders , Students At Risk , Teacher Professional Development

Browse by Topic

Select month, join our newsletter.

Should Kids Get Homework?

Homework gives elementary students a way to practice concepts, but too much can be harmful, experts say.

Mother helping son with homework at home

Getty Images

Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful.

How much homework students should get has long been a source of debate among parents and educators. In recent years, some districts have even implemented no-homework policies, as students juggle sports, music and other activities after school.

Parents of elementary school students, in particular, have argued that after-school hours should be spent with family or playing outside rather than completing assignments. And there is little research to show that homework improves academic achievement for elementary students.

But some experts say there's value in homework, even for younger students. When done well, it can help students practice core concepts and develop study habits and time management skills. The key to effective homework, they say, is keeping assignments related to classroom learning, and tailoring the amount by age: Many experts suggest no homework for kindergartners, and little to none in first and second grade.

Value of Homework

Homework provides a chance to solidify what is being taught in the classroom that day, week or unit. Practice matters, says Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University 's Wheelock College of Education & Human Development.

"There really is no other domain of human ability where anybody would say you don't need to practice," she adds. "We have children practicing piano and we have children going to sports practice several days a week after school. You name the domain of ability and practice is in there."

Homework is also the place where schools and families most frequently intersect.

"The children are bringing things from the school into the home," says Paula S. Fass, professor emerita of history at the University of California—Berkeley and the author of "The End of American Childhood." "Before the pandemic, (homework) was the only real sense that parents had to what was going on in schools."

Harris Cooper, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and author of "The Battle Over Homework," examined more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003 and found that — when designed properly — homework can lead to greater student success. Too much, however, is harmful. And homework has a greater positive effect on students in secondary school (grades 7-12) than those in elementary.

"Every child should be doing homework, but the amount and type that they're doing should be appropriate for their developmental level," he says. "For teachers, it's a balancing act. Doing away with homework completely is not in the best interest of children and families. But overburdening families with homework is also not in the child's or a family's best interest."

Negative Homework Assignments

Not all homework for elementary students involves completing a worksheet. Assignments can be fun, says Cooper, like having students visit educational locations, keep statistics on their favorite sports teams, read for pleasure or even help their parents grocery shop. The point is to show students that activities done outside of school can relate to subjects learned in the classroom.

But assignments that are just busy work, that force students to learn new concepts at home, or that are overly time-consuming can be counterproductive, experts say.

Homework that's just busy work.

Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful, experts say. Assignments that look more like busy work – projects or worksheets that don't require teacher feedback and aren't related to topics learned in the classroom – can be frustrating for students and create burdens for families.

"The mental health piece has definitely played a role here over the last couple of years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the last thing we want to do is frustrate students with busy work or homework that makes no sense," says Dave Steckler, principal of Red Trail Elementary School in Mandan, North Dakota.

Homework on material that kids haven't learned yet.

With the pressure to cover all topics on standardized tests and limited time during the school day, some teachers assign homework that has not yet been taught in the classroom.

Not only does this create stress, but it also causes equity challenges. Some parents speak languages other than English or work several jobs, and they aren't able to help teach their children new concepts.

" It just becomes agony for both parents and the kids to get through this worksheet, and the goal becomes getting to the bottom of (the) worksheet with answers filled in without any understanding of what any of it matters for," says professor Susan R. Goldman, co-director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois—Chicago .

Homework that's overly time-consuming.

The standard homework guideline recommended by the National Parent Teacher Association and the National Education Association is the "10-minute rule" – 10 minutes of nightly homework per grade level. A fourth grader, for instance, would receive a total of 40 minutes of homework per night.

But this does not always happen, especially since not every student learns the same. A 2015 study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy found that primary school children actually received three times the recommended amount of homework — and that family stress increased along with the homework load.

Young children can only remain attentive for short periods, so large amounts of homework, especially lengthy projects, can negatively affect students' views on school. Some individual long-term projects – like having to build a replica city, for example – typically become an assignment for parents rather than students, Fass says.

"It's one thing to assign a project like that in which several kids are working on it together," she adds. "In (that) case, the kids do normally work on it. It's another to send it home to the families, where it becomes a burden and doesn't really accomplish very much."

Private vs. Public Schools

Do private schools assign more homework than public schools? There's little research on the issue, but experts say private school parents may be more accepting of homework, seeing it as a sign of academic rigor.

Of course, not all private schools are the same – some focus on college preparation and traditional academics, while others stress alternative approaches to education.

"I think in the academically oriented private schools, there's more support for homework from parents," says Gerald K. LeTendre, chair of educational administration at Pennsylvania State University—University Park . "I don't know if there's any research to show there's more homework, but it's less of a contentious issue."

How to Address Homework Overload

First, assess if the workload takes as long as it appears. Sometimes children may start working on a homework assignment, wander away and come back later, Cooper says.

"Parents don't see it, but they know that their child has started doing their homework four hours ago and still not done it," he adds. "They don't see that there are those four hours where their child was doing lots of other things. So the homework assignment itself actually is not four hours long. It's the way the child is approaching it."

But if homework is becoming stressful or workload is excessive, experts suggest parents first approach the teacher, followed by a school administrator.

"Many times, we can solve a lot of issues by having conversations," Steckler says, including by "sitting down, talking about the amount of homework, and what's appropriate and not appropriate."

Study Tips for High School Students

High angle view of young woman sitting at desk and studying at home during coronavirus lockdown

Tags: K-12 education , students , elementary school , children

2024 Best Colleges

Search for your perfect fit with the U.S. News rankings of colleges and universities.

Please ensure that your password is at least 8 characters and contains each of the following:

a special character: @$#!%*?&

Designing and Assessing Homework

The goal of Proficiency-Based Learning Simplified is to ensure that students acquire the most essential knowledge and skills they will need to succeed in school, higher education, the modern workplace, and adult life. Therefore, systems of assessment and verifying proficiency should prioritize enduring knowledge and skills—i.e., graduation standards and related performance indicators.

In a proficiency-based system, homework—i.e., assignments completed largely outside of the classroom and without direct support and supervision from teachers—should be instructionally purposeful and connected to clearly defined learning standards. The Great Schools Partnership recommends that teachers consider the following general guidelines when assigning homework in a proficiency-based l earning environment:

All homework assignments should be relevant, educationally purposeful, and driven by clearly defined learning objectives for a unit or lesson.
Students should be given an equal and equitable opportunity to complete all homework assignments. Given that some home situations may complicate a student’s ability to complete an outside-of-class assignment—such as households that have no computers or internet connection—schools and teachers need to ensure that every student has access to all necessary materials, technologies, and resources regardless of their socioeconomic status, language ability, disability, or home situation.
The failure to complete or turn-in homework on time should not affect a student’s academic score unless the work being done outside of class is part of a larger summative assessment.
The failure to complete or turn-in homework on time may be reflected in a student’s habits-of-work grade.
Students should be given additional opportunities to improve, complete, and resubmit homework as an additional demonstration opportunity when reasonable and appropriate. If the assignment is part of a larger summative assessment, the improved scores should be counted, not earlier scores or a combination of scores.
Teachers should provide feedback in a timely fashion so that students know how well they performed before they take the next assessment.
The purpose of all homework assignments should be clearly articulated to and understood by students; specifically, students should know what learning objectives and performance indicators the assignment addresses, and what criteria will be used if the homework assignment is going to be assessed.
Students should know in advance if a homework assignment is going to be assessed, and whether the assignment will be a formative assessment or a graded part of a larger summative assessment.
To the extent possible, homework should be differentiated for students, which includes, when appropriate, student-designed learning tasks and projects that allow them to demonstrate proficiency in ways that engage their personal interests, ambitions, and learning needs.

← Return to PBL Tool Menu

482 Congress Street, Suite 500 Portland, ME 04101 Phone: (207) 773-0505 Fax: (877) 849-7052

Explore our unique and engaging communities of practice

Visit our events page for details on registration, pricing, and more.

Communities of Practice

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the 5 best homework help websites (free and paid).

Other High School , General Education

Listen: we know homework isn’t fun, but it is a good way to reinforce the ideas and concepts you’ve learned in class. But what if you’re really struggling with your homework assignments?

If you’ve looked online for a little extra help with your take-home assignments, you’ve probably stumbled across websites claiming to provide the homework help and answers students need to succeed . But can homework help sites really make a difference? And if so, which are the best homework help websites you can use?

Below, we answer these questions and more about homework help websites–free and paid. We’ll go over:

The basics of homework help websites
The cost of homework help websites
The five best homework websites out there
The pros and cons of using these websites for homework help
The line between “learning” and “cheating” when using online homework help
Tips for getting the most out of a homework help website

So let’s get started!

The Basics About Homework Help Websites–Free and Paid

Homework help websites are designed to help you complete your homework assignments, plain and simple.

What Makes a Homework Help Site Worth Using

Most of the best sites allow users to ask questions and then provide an answer (or multiple possible answers) and explanation in seconds. In some instances, you can even send a photo of a particular assignment or problem instead of typing the whole thing out!

Homework help sites also offer more than just help answering homework questions. Common services provided are Q&A with experts, educational videos, lectures, practice tests and quizzes, learning modules, math solving tools, and proofreading help. Homework help sites can also provide textbook solutions (i.e. answers to problems in tons of different textbooks your school might be using), one-on-one tutoring, and peer-to-peer platforms that allow you to discuss subjects you’re learning about with your fellow students.

And best of all, nearly all of them offer their services 24/7, including tutoring!

What You Should Should Look Out For

When it comes to homework help, there are lots–and we mean lots –of scam sites out there willing to prey on desperate students. Before you sign up for any service, make sure you read reviews to ensure you’re working with a legitimate company.

A word to the wise: the more a company advertises help that veers into the territory of cheating, the more likely it is to be a scam. The best homework help websites are going to help you learn the concepts you’ll need to successfully complete your homework on your own. (We’ll go over the difference between “homework help” and “cheating” a little later!)

You don't need a golden piggy bank to use homework help websites. Some provide low or no cost help for students like you!

How Expensive Are the Best Homework Help Websites?

First of all, just because a homework help site costs money doesn’t mean it’s a good service. Likewise, just because a homework help website is free doesn’t mean the help isn’t high quality. To find the best websites, you have to take a close look at the quality and types of information they provide!

When it comes to paid homework help services, the prices vary pretty widely depending on the amount of services you want to subscribe to. Subscriptions can cost anywhere from $2 to $150 dollars per month, with the most expensive services offering several hours of one-on-one tutoring with a subject expert per month.

The 5 Best Homework Help Websites

So, what is the best homework help website you can use? The answer is that it depends on what you need help with.

The best homework help websites are the ones that are reliable and help you learn the material. They don’t just provide answers to homework questions–they actually help you learn the material.

That’s why we’ve broken down our favorite websites into categories based on who they’re best for . For instance, the best website for people struggling with math might not work for someone who needs a little extra help with science, and vice versa.

Keep reading to find the best homework help website for you!

Best Free Homework Help Site: Khan Academy

Price: Free!
Best for: Practicing tough material

Not only is Khan Academy free, but it’s full of information and can be personalized to suit your needs. When you set up your account , you choose which courses you need to study, and Khan Academy sets up a personal dashboard of instructional videos, practice exercises, and quizzes –with both correct and incorrect answer explanations–so you can learn at your own pace.

As an added bonus, it covers more course topics than many other homework help sites, including several AP classes.

Runner Up: Brainly.com offers a free service that allows you to type in questions and get answers and explanations from experts. The downside is that you’re limited to two answers per question and have to watch ads.

Best Paid Homework Help Site: Chegg

Price: $14.95 to $19.95 per month
Best for: 24/7 homework assistance

This service has three main parts . The first is Chegg Study, which includes textbook solutions, Q&A with subject experts, flashcards, video explanations, a math solver, and writing help. The resources are thorough, and reviewers state that Chegg answers homework questions quickly and accurately no matter when you submit them.

Chegg also offers textbook rentals for students who need access to textbooks outside of their classroom. Finally, Chegg offers Internship and Career Advice for students who are preparing to graduate and may need a little extra help with the transition out of high school.

Another great feature Chegg provides is a selection of free articles geared towards helping with general life skills, like coping with stress and saving money. Chegg’s learning modules are comprehensive, and they feature solutions to the problems in tons of different textbooks in a wide variety of subjects.

Runner Up: Bartleby offers basically the same services as Chegg for $14.99 per month. The reason it didn’t rank as the best is based on customer reviews that say user questions aren’t answered quite as quickly on this site as on Chegg. Otherwise, this is also a solid choice!

Best Site for Math Homework Help: Photomath

Price: Free (or $59.99 per year for premium services)
Best for: Explaining solutions to math problems

This site allows you to t ake a picture of a math problem, and instantly pulls up a step-by-step solution, as well as a detailed explanation of the concept. Photomath also includes animated videos that break down mathematical concepts to help you better understand and remember them.

The basic service is free, but for an additional fee you can get extra study tools and learn additional strategies for solving common math problems.

Runner Up: KhanAcademy offers in-depth tutorials that cover complex math topics for free, but you won’t get the same tailored help (and answers!) that Photomath offers.

Best Site for English Homework Help: Princeton Review Academic Tutoring

Price: $40 to $153 per month, depending on how many hours of tutoring you want
Best for: Comprehensive and personalized reading and writing help

While sites like Grammarly and Sparknotes help you by either proofreading what you write via an algorithm or providing book summaries, Princeton Review’s tutors provide in-depth help with vocabulary, literature, essay writing and development, proofreading, and reading comprehension. And unlike other services, you’ll have the chance to work with a real person to get help.

The best part is that you can get on-demand English (and ESL) tutoring from experts 24/7. That means you can get help whenever you need it, even if you’re pulling an all-nighter!

This is by far the most expensive homework site on this list, so you’ll need to really think about what you need out of a homework help website before you commit. One added benefit is that the subscription covers over 80 other subjects, including AP classes, which can make it a good value if you need lots of help!

Best Site for STEM Homework Help: Studypool

Best for: Science homework help
Price: Varies; you’ll pay for each question you submit

When it comes to science homework help, there aren’t a ton of great resources out there. The best of the bunch is Studypool, and while it has great reviews, there are some downsides as well.

Let’s start with the good stuff. Studypool offers an interesting twist on the homework help formula. After you create a free account, you can submit your homework help questions, and tutors will submit bids to answer your questions. You’ll be able to select the tutor–and price point–that works for you, then you’ll pay to have your homework question answered. You can also pay a small fee to access notes, lectures, and other documents that top tutors have uploaded.

The downside to Studypool is that the pricing is not transparent . There’s no way to plan for how much your homework help will cost, especially if you have lots of questions! Additionally, it’s not clear how tutors are selected, so you’ll need to be cautious when you choose who you’d like to answer your homework questions.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using Homework Help Sites?

Homework help websites can be a great resource if you’re struggling in a subject, or even if you just want to make sure that you’re really learning and understanding topics and ideas that you’re interested in. But, there are some possible drawbacks if you don’t use these sites responsibly.

We’ll go over the good–and the not-so-good–aspects of getting online homework help below.

3 Pros of Using Homework Help Websites

First, let’s take a look at the benefits.

#1: Better Grades Beyond Homework

This is a big one! Getting outside help with your studies can improve your understanding of concepts that you’re learning, which translates into better grades when you take tests or write essays.

Remember: homework is designed to help reinforce the concepts you learned in class. If you just get easy answers without learning the material behind the problems, you may not have the tools you need to be successful on your class exams…or even standardized tests you’ll need to take for college.

#2: Convenience

One of the main reasons that online homework help is appealing is because it’s flexible and convenient. You don’t have to go to a specific tutoring center while they’re open or stay after school to speak with your teacher. Instead, you can access helpful resources wherever you can access the internet, whenever you need them.

This is especially true if you tend to study at off hours because of your extracurriculars, work schedule, or family obligations. Sites that offer 24/7 tutoring can give you the extra help you need if you can’t access the free resources that are available at your school.

#3: Variety

Not everyone learns the same way. Maybe you’re more of a visual learner, but your teacher mostly does lectures. Or maybe you learn best by listening and taking notes, but you’re expected to learn something just from reading the textbook .

One of the best things about online homework help is that it comes in a variety of forms. The best homework help sites offer resources for all types of learners, including videos, practice activities, and even one-on-one discussions with real-life experts.

This variety can also be a good thing if you just don’t really resonate with the way a concept is being explained (looking at you, math textbooks!).

Not so fast. There are cons to homework help websites, too. Get to know them below!

3 Cons of Using Homework Help Websites

Now, let’s take a look at the drawbacks of online homework help.

#1: Unreliable Info

This can be a real problem. In addition to all the really good homework help sites, there are a whole lot of disreputable or unreliable sites out there. The fact of the matter is that some homework help sites don’t necessarily hire people who are experts in the subjects they’re talking about. In those cases, you may not be getting the accurate, up-to-date, and thorough information you need.

Additionally, even the great sites may not be able to answer all of your homework questions. This is especially true if the site uses an algorithm or chatbot to help students…or if you’re enrolled in an advanced or college-level course. In these cases, working with your teacher or school-provided tutors are probably your best option.

#2: No Clarification

This depends on the service you use, of course. But the majority of them provide free or low-cost help through pre-recorded videos. Watching videos or reading info online can definitely help you with your homework… but you can’t ask questions or get immediate feedback if you need it .

#3: Potential For Scamming

Like we mentioned earlier, there are a lot of homework help websites out there, and lots of them are scams. The review comments we read covered everything from outdated or wrong information, to misleading claims about the help provided, to not allowing people to cancel their service after signing up.

No matter which site you choose to use, make sure you research and read reviews before you sign up–especially if it’s a paid service!

When Does “Help” Become “Cheating”?

Admittedly, whether using homework help websites constitutes cheating is a bit of a grey area. For instance, is it “help” when a friend reads your essay for history class and corrects your grammar, or is it “cheating”? The truth is, not everyone agrees on when “help” crosses the line into “cheating .” When in doubt, it can be a good idea to check with your teacher to see what they think about a particular type of help you want to get.

That said, a general rule of thumb to keep in mind is to make sure that the assignment you turn in for credit is authentically yours . It needs to demonstrate your own thoughts and your own current abilities. Remember: the point of every homework assignment is to 1) help you learn something, and 2) show what you’ve learned.

So if a service answers questions or writes essays for you, there’s a good chance using it constitutes cheating.

Here’s an example that might help clarify the difference for you. Brainstorming essay ideas with others or looking online for inspiration is “help” as long as you write the essay yourself. Having someone read it and give you feedback about what you need to change is also help, provided you’re the one that makes the changes later.

But copying all or part of an essay you find online or having someone write (or rewrite) the whole thing for you would be “cheating.” The same is true for other subjects. Ultimately, if you’re not generating your own work or your own answers, it’s probably cheating.

5 Tips for Finding the Best Homework Help Websites for You

Now that you know some of our favorite homework help websites, free and paid, you can start doing some additional research on your own to decide which services might work best for you! Here are some top tips for choosing a homework help website.

Tip 1: Decide How You Learn Best

Before you decide which site or sites you’re going to use for homework help, y ou should figure out what kind of learning style works for you the most. Are you a visual learner? Then choose a site that uses lots of videos to help explain concepts. If you know you learn best by actually doing tasks, choose a site that provides lots of practice exercises.

Tip 2: Determine Which Subjects You Need Help With

Just because a homework help site is good overall doesn’t mean that it’s equally good for every subject. If you only need help in math, choose a site that specializes in that area. But if history is where you’re struggling, a site that specializes in math won’t be much help. So make sure to choose a site that you know provides high-quality help in the areas you need it most.

Tip 3: Decide How Much One-On-One Help You Need

This is really about cost-effectiveness. If you learn well on your own by reading and watching videos, a free site like Khan Academy is a good choice. But if you need actual tutoring, or to be able to ask questions and get personalized answers from experts, a paid site that provides that kind of service may be a better option.

Tip 4: Set a Budget

If you decide you want to go with a paid homework help website, set a budget first . The prices for sites vary wildly, and the cost to use them can add up quick.

Tip 5: Read the Reviews

Finally, it’s always a good idea to read actual reviews written by the people using these homework sites. You’ll learn the good, the bad, and the ugly of what the users’ experiences have been. This is especially true if you intend to subscribe to a paid service. You’ll want to make sure that users think it’s worth the price overall!

What’s Next?

If you want to get good grades on your homework, it’s a good idea to learn how to tackle it strategically. Our expert tips will help you get the most out of each assignment…and boost your grades in the process.

Doing well on homework assignments is just one part of getting good grades. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about getting great grades in high school in this article.

Of course, test grades can make or break your GPA, too. Here are 17 expert tips that’ll help you get the most out of your study prep before you take an exam.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

What’s the point of homework?

Deputy Dean, School of Education, Western Sydney University

Disclosure statement

Katina Zammit does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Western Sydney University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

Homework hasn’t changed much in the past few decades. Most children are still sent home with about an hour’s worth of homework each day, mostly practising what they were taught in class.

If we look internationally, homework is assigned in every country that participated in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2012.

Across the participating countries, 15-year-old students reported spending almost five hours per week doing homework in 2012. Australian students spent six hours per week on average on homework. Students in Singapore spent seven hours on homework, and in Shanghai, China they did homework for about 14 hours per week on average.

Read more: Aussie students are a year behind students 10 years ago in science, maths and reading

Shanghai and Singapore routinely score higher than Australia in the PISA maths, science and reading tests. But homework could just be one of the factors leading to higher results. In Finland, which also scores higher than Australia, students spent less than three hours on homework per week.

So, what’s the purpose of homework and what does the evidence say about whether it fulfils its purpose?

Why do teachers set homework?

Each school in Australia has its own homework policy developed in consultation with teachers and parents or caregivers, under the guiding principles of state or regional education departments.

For instance, according to the New South Wales homework policy “… tasks should be assigned by teachers with a specific, explicit learning purpose”.

Homework in NSW should also be “purposeful and designed to meet specific learning goals”, and “built on knowledge, skills and understanding developed in class”. But there is limited, if any, guidance on how often homework should be set.

Research based on teacher interviews shows they set homework for a range of reasons. These include to:

establish and improve communication between parents and children about learning

help children be more responsible, confident and disciplined

practise or review material from class

determine children’s understanding of the lesson and/or skills

introduce new material to be presented in class

provide students with opportunities to apply and integrate skills to new situations or interest areas

get students to use their own skills to create work.

So, does homework achieve what teachers intend it to?

Do we know if it ‘works’?

Studies on homework are frequently quite general, and don’t consider specific types of homework tasks. So it isn’t easy to measure how effective homework could be, or to compare studies.

But there are several things we can say.

First, it’s better if every student gets the kind of homework task that benefits them personally, such as one that helps them answer questions they had, or understand a problem they couldn’t quite grasp in class. This promotes students’ confidence and control of their own learning.

Read more: Learning from home is testing students' online search skills. Here are 3 ways to improve them

Giving students repetitive tasks may not have much value . For instance, calculating the answer to 120 similar algorithms, such as adding two different numbers 120 times may make the student think maths is irrelevant and boring. In this case, children are not being encouraged to find solutions but simply applying a formula they learnt in school.

In primary schools, homework that aims to improve children’s confidence and learning discipline can be beneficial. For example, children can be asked to practise giving a presentation on a topic of their interest. This could help build their competence in speaking in front of a class.

Young boy holding a microphone in the living room.

Homework can also highlight equity issues. It can be particularly burdensome for socioeconomically disadvantaged students who may not have a space, the resources or as much time due to family and work commitments. Their parents may also not feel capable of supporting them or have their own work commitments.

According to the PISA studies mentioned earlier, socioeconomically disadvantaged 15 year olds spend nearly three hours less on homework each week than their advantaged peers.

Read more: 'I was astonished at how quickly they made gains': online tutoring helps struggling students catch up

What kind of homework is best?

Homework can be engaging and contribute to learning if it is more than just a sheet of maths or list of spelling words not linked to class learning. From summarising various studies’ findings, “good” homework should be:

personalised to each child rather than the same for all students in the class. This is more likely to make a difference to a child’s learning and performance

achievable, so the child can complete it independently, building skills in managing their time and behaviour

aligned to the learning in the classroom.

If you aren’t happy with the homework your child is given then approach the school. If your child is having difficulty with doing the homework, the teacher needs to know. It shouldn’t be burdensome for you or your children.

Disadvantaged students

Data Manager

Director, Social Policy

Coordinator, Academic Advising

Head, School of Psychology

Senior Research Fellow - Women's Health Services

The terms �studying� and �doing homework� are often used synonymously. Especially in upper level education, they both mean essentially the same thing -- learning and preparing for school done outside of class time. But there are some important differences in what they mean to your child and how they should be approached.

Studying goes above and beyond what the teacher provides for the student. It necessitates self-starting. Your student should understand that what the teacher assigns, while good for reinforcing and expanding knowledge, is not enough for most students to fully prepare for tests. Every student has different strengths and weaknesses. Each student should identify their own weaknesses, with your help or a teacher's, and use this knowledge to focus their efforts and energy when it comes time to study. This tactic will also help them understand the difference between studying and doing homework, as well as the value of spending their own time outside of school and homework, studying .

About the author

Introducing TeachCatalystAI

TeachCatalystAI is a professional teaching assistant tool designed to help teachers create lesson plan, teaching materials, and many more with ease. Our AI-powered tool will help you streamline your classroom management, making it easier to keep track of students, assignments, and behavior. Our AI-powered tools and templates are great and configured to make you effective in teaching.

Pros and Cons of Homework: What You Should Know

Affiliate Disclaimer

As an affiliate, we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases. We get commissions for purchases made through links on this website from Amazon and other third parties.

Homework can be a great tool for students to improve their academic performance, but there are also some drawbacks.

Some pros to assigning homework are that it can help students practice and master the material they learned in class, it can help students develop good study habits, and it can give students a sense of accomplishment. Some cons to assigning homework are that it can be a burden for students if they have a lot of homework to do, it can take away time from family and friends, and it can cause students to stress out.

In this post, I am going to explore the various benefits and drawbacks of using homework in your classroom. Let’s get started!

Pros of homework

Homework can be a great tool for you to improve the learning process of your students if you use it correctly. The following are some of the benefits of homework for teaching and learning:

1. It helps students learn.

Homework has been proven to help students learn effectively. It can help them retain information, increase their focus and improve their recall. By providing a routine for homework, students are able to better manage their time and stay on track with their education.

For example, homework can help students keep track of their progress and reinforce what they have learned. It can also help them focus on what they are doing in class, which will improve the amount of time that they spend in class.

2. It improves test scores.

Homework is a common assignment that students receive in school. It can be thought of as a way for teachers to help students learn and practice the material they have learned. Research has shown that homework can improve students’ test scores. This is because homework helps students learn the material more thoroughly and retain it better.

If a student does their homework, they will be able to answer questions from the test that they will take on that topic. The more homework a student does, the better their test scores will be. For example, in one study, it was found that homework helps improve students’ scores on standardized tests . The more homework a student doe s, the better it is for their grades.

3. It increases student engagement and motivation.

Homework has been proven to increase student engagement and motivation. When done correctly, homework can help students learn by engaging them in challenging tasks and helping them develop skills.

Homework can have a number of benefits for students, both in terms of engagement and motivation. By helping to reinforce the learning process, homework can help students retain information better and increase their understanding of what they are studying. With this, students become engaged and motivated to continue learning.

Additionally, homework can provide a sense of accomplishment and help students feel responsible for their own learning. This motivates students to engage in their studies.

Finally, homework can be used as an opportunity for students to connect with other classmates and share ideas about the material they are studying. Connecting and sharing ideas with classmates about homework helps students become engaged and motivated.

4. It enhances productivity.

How to Handle a Student Who Sleeps in Class

Homework has been shown to be beneficial to student productivity in the classroom. Homework allows students to focus on their work and learn more about the material being taught. It also helps students develop better study habits, which can lead to them performing better in class.

Additionally, homework can provide a sense of accomplishment that can encourage students to continue learning. Overall, homework enhances student productivity in the classroom by helping them focus on their work and learn more about the material being taught.

5. It teaches responsibility.

Every student knows the feeling of dread when they have to do their homework. For some, it can be tedious and time-consuming. But homework has a far bigger purpose than just helping students pass exams-it teaches them how to be responsible citizens in the classroom.

Homework can help students develop critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, organizational skills, and time management skills. It also encourages them to stay on top of their studies and stay up-to-date with new information. In short, homework helps students become better learners overall.

While there are many benefits to doing homework, it can also be frustrating when it’s not done on time or when it’s not done well. That’s why teachers value homework so much; it helps students learn how to be responsible members of society.

6. Homework develops time management skills.

Many students believe that homework is a waste of time because they think it only helps teachers track their progress and keeps them from having fun. In reality, homework is one of the most important tools teachers have to help students develop time management skills.

Importance Of Using Scaffolding In The Classroom

The reason homework helps students develop these skills is because it forces students to focus on their schoolwork in addition to their other responsibilities. By doing this, students learn how to manage their time better and stay on track with their goals.

Additionally, homework can also help students learn how to problem-solve and work independently. When students are able to do these things, they are more likely to be successful in the classroom.

In all, homework can help students learn how to manage their time by planning and organizing their work, dividing up tasks into manageable chunks, prioritizing homework over other responsibilities, and scheduling time for schoolwork.

7. It helps students develop study skills.

When students are assigned homework, they are learning to develop important study skills. Homework helps students learn how to organize and focus their attention, manage their time, and build discipline. It also teaches them how to solve problems. These skills will help the student in the classroom and in life.

For example, a student who can better organize their time and work independently may be more likely to finish homework assignments that are harder.

8. Homework builds self-discipline.

When students work on their homework, they are developing self-discipline. Self-discipline is the ability to focus, organize and manage time, plan, solve problems, and follow directions. Self-discipline is vital to success in school and in life.

For example, a student who has developed self-discipline is less likely to be distracted by friends and television, which are two common distractions that many students face in school.

9. Homework helps students learn to work independently.

When students are required to complete their homework, they become more independent learners. They gain skills in time management, organization, and problem-solving. These skills will help them in the classroom and in life.

For example, a student who has learned to work independently is more likely to be able to plan and schedule his or her time throughout the day, which will help him or her become more organized.

Ways to Deal With Students Who Don't Care about Anything

10. Homework helps students learn to follow directions.

In the classroom, following directions can be difficult for students. This is especially true for students who have difficulty paying attention to what is happening in class. Homework can help students learn how to follow directions.

By doing homework, students are required to complete a task that has been assigned by the teacher. This makes it easier for the student to pay attention in class and follow directions.

For example, students often get homework that requires them to pay attention and follow directions before completing the tasks assigned to them. With that, they learn to follow instructions and directions, which is a critical skill in life.

11. It enhances critical thinking skills.

How does homework enhance the critical thinking skills of students in the classroom? Homework can help improve the critical thinking skills of students in the classroom by requiring them to apply their knowledge and skills in a practical context.

In addition, homework can also help students learn how to use their critical thinking skills to solve problems. Furthermore, homework can help students develop patience and perseverance when faced with difficult tasks. Overall, homework helps students become better thinkers and more effective learners.

12. It boosts academic achievement.

Homework can boost academic achievement by helping students focus and retain information, work ahead in their lessons, and build valuable study skills.

Additionally, staying organized and completing tasks on time can help students build good habits that will carry over into other areas of their lives. For example, homework helps students develop skills that propel them to become successful in the classroom.

13. It promotes teamwork and cooperation.

Many people believe that homework promotes teamwork and cooperation among students in the classroom. This is because homework often requires students to work together on tasks, which helps them learn how to work cooperatively.

Additionally, when students are required to complete homework, they are more likely to try hard and cooperate with their classmates. This is because they know that if they do their homework, they will receive good grades.

For example, when students are given group homework, it can help them to learn how to cooperate and work with other people to achieve a particular task.

14. Prepare for future academic challenges.

Homework can help students better prepare for future academic challenges. This is because it allows them to develop skills that will be useful in their academic careers.

For example, homework can help students learn how to organize their information, study for tests, and think critically. In addition, homework can also help students build vocabulary and learn new concepts.

15. It promotes good work habits.

The benefits of homework are well known among educators, but what about students? There are many reasons why homework promotes good work habits among students.

One reason is that it helps students learn how to manage their time. They learn how to prioritize and how to plan their days. Homework also teaches critical-thinking skills. Students must be able to analyze information and come up with solutions on their own.

Homework can also help strengthen relationships between parents and children, as parents support and supervise students to complete their homework. Parents can see the value in homework, and children may have a better attitude towards school if they know their parents expect them to complete their work.

16. It enhances problem-solving skills.

Problem-solving is a critical skill for students to develop. Problem-solving is the process of making decisions about how to solve problems. Homework can help students learn problem-solving skills by providing opportunities to practice them. In fact, homework has been shown to improve problem-solving skills .

One reason why homework is so effective in teaching problem-solving skills is that it provides a consistent and systematic format for practicing these skills. Homework assignments provide students with opportunities to practice critical thinking skills, identify and solve problems, and develop persistence. Additionally, homework can help students learn how to work cooperatively with others. All of these abilities are essential for success in school and in life.

17. A greater understanding of the material.

Homework has been shown to enhance a greater understanding of the material among students. This is because homework allows students to practice what they have learned and to reinforce it. It also allows them to explore the material further and experiment with it.

In addition, homework can help students develop their critical thinking skills. This is because homework helps students not to only understand the material, but to also organize it and think about it. It can help them develop their memory and recall abilities, which are essential for success in school and life.

Cons of homework

When you don’t use homework appropriately in the classroom, the following problems will arise:

1. It can leave students feeling overwhelmed.

Homework can be a daunting task for students, leaving them feeling overwhelmed and stressed. As homework has become more and more common in schools, students are often left with little choice but to complete it.

This can lead to students feeling overwhelmed and stressed, as they have no break from the workload and are often expected to perform well in class while also completing the homework. This can create a difficult balance for students, as they are faced with two competing demands.

2. It can be a distraction from other activities or interests.

Homework can be a distraction from other activities or interests because it can be time-consuming, boring, and repetitive. It can also stress people out, which can lead to problems at school or in their personal lives. There are ways to make homework less of a distraction and more of a learning experience. For example, teachers could make assignments that are relevant to the class material, make sure the homework is done in a reasonable amount of time, and give students feedback on their work.

There are a few reasons why homework can be a distraction from other activities or interests. One reason is that homework often requires concentration and focus, which can be difficult to maintain when there are other distractions around. Additionally, many students find it boring or tedious to do homework, which can lead to them losing interest in the task overall.

Finally, because homework often takes up a large amount of time each night, it can prevent students from spending time with friends or family members, which can also lead to boredom and loneliness.

3. It can create stress and anxiety in students.

Homework can create stress and anxiety in students for a variety of reasons. For some, homework can be a daunting task that requires hours of uninterrupted concentration. For others, it may be a source of frustration due to the lack of consistency in its delivery or because it conflicts with other duties outside of school.

Regardless of the reason, homework can often lead to feelings of stress and frustration. This is particularly true for students who are struggling academically or who have other responsibilities at home. Consequently, homework can be a major contributor to stress and anxiety in students.

4. It can lead to cheating.

Cheating on homework has become a common phenomenon among students across the globe. There are many reasons why this may be the case, but one of the most common reasons is that homework can be a source of stress for students. When assignments are difficult or when there is pressure to perform well, some students may feel like they have to cheat in order to get through them.

Another reason why cheating on homework can occur is that it can be an easy way for students to get ahead. If they know the answers to certain questions, they can simply copy them off of their classmates and submit their work as their own. This type of cheating is unfair to other students who have worked hard on their assignments.

And finally, it can be a way for students to hide their mistakes or try to cheat on tests. All of these reasons are why homework should not be given out as punishment, but rather as a way to help students learn and improve.

5. It can cause health problems.

How can homework cause health problems for students? Numerous studies have shown that a large number of students experience negative health effects from doing homework. These health problems can include stress, anxiety, insomnia, and even depression.

One reason why homework can be so problematic is that it often takes up a lot of time and energy that should be spent on other activities. Additionally, homework can be extremely tedious and requires a great deal of concentration. For these reasons, many students find it difficult to complete it proficiently.

Consequently, excessive amounts of homework may actually be harmful to your overall health.

6. It can interfere with family time.

Homework can interfere with students’ family time if the student is not able to complete their homework in a reasonable amount of time. This can lead to tension between the student and their parents, as well as less time for the student to spend with their families.

Excessive homework can create stress for parents, who may have to pick up the children after school or help them with their studies. Ultimately, homework can cause tension between students and their parents, and it can be a barrier to communication between the two parties.

There are many benefits to having a homework system in place, but it must be done in a way that does not interfere with family time.

7. It can interfere with sleep.

Homework can interfere with the sleep of students for a variety of reasons. For some students, homework can lead to feelings of overwhelm and stress. This can disrupt the natural sleep cycle and cause students to have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. Additionally, completing homework can take up time that could be spent relaxing and enjoying downtime with friends or family. As a result, homework may actually reduce the amount of sleep that students get each night.

8. Too much homework can affect students’ achievement.

Too much homework can have negative consequences for students’ academic achievement and future success. Too much homework can lead to a decrease in student productivity, diminished focus, and diminished enjoyment of learning.

Furthermore, it has been shown that students who do too much homework tend to have lower grades and lower test scores. There are several reasons why too much homework can have these detrimental effects.

First, when students are excessively busy with assigned work, they may lose opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities or other enrichment programs that could help them improve their skills and knowledge.

Second, when students become bogged down by excessive amounts of homework, they may find it difficult to devote sufficient time to studying for tests or completing other academic tasks.

Third, when students are spending too much time working on schoolwork rather than engaging in other enjoyable activities, they may lose interest in learning and forfeit valuable opportunities for personal growth.

All of the above negatively impact the academic achievement of students.

9. Homework can lead to boredom.

Many students find homework to be a tedious and time-consuming chore. This can lead to boredom and a lack of focus in the classroom, which can adversely affect student learning. Too much homework can actually make students feel tired and stressed, making them less likely to enjoy their schoolwork.

To conclude, homework can be a great way to help students learn and retain information. If done correctly, however, homework provides valuable instruction that reinforces what was learned in class. Too much of it, on the other hand, can result in students feeling overwhelmed and not getting the benefits they need from their studies. It’s important for educators to strike a balance between providing enough challenges for students while also ensuring they are well-rested so they are able to excel academically.

About the author

Latest Posts

How to Warn Students Effectively in Your Classroom

Uncover the strategic tactics for effectively warning students in your classroom and fostering a positive learning environment with proven methods.

13 Teacher Burnout Symptoms

A comprehensive understanding of teacher burnout symptoms is essential for educators to navigate challenges and prioritize well-being.

Causes of Disruptive Behaviour in the Classroom

Intriguing insights into the causes of disruptive behavior in the classroom shed light on underlying factors affecting student conduct.

What to Do if You Lose Your Homeowners Insurance

Don't waste any time. If you lose your homeowners insurance, it may not be easy to replace it.

What to Do If You Lose Home Insurance

Shot of a young woman using a laptop while going through paperwork at home

Getty Images

To shop for insurance policies, contact your state’s insurance department and find out what companies are operating in your area.

Key Takeaways:

Home insurers are losing money due to extreme weather events.
Homeowners insurance prices are climbing in all states.
If you lose your homeowners insurance and can’t find a replacement, you may want to look into a Fair Access to Insurance Requirements plan.

Everybody knows how important homeowners insurance is – that’s why it can be rattling to be told by your insurer that you’ve just lost it.

Due to extreme weather events and natural disasters, insurers are losing money, even in states with low hurricane and wildfire risk.

As of May 8, there have been seven confirmed weather/climate disaster events this year in the U.S., with losses exceeding $1 billion each. These included five severe storm events and two winter storm events, according to the federal National Centers for Environmental Information. There were 28 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events identified during 2023 – the highest annual disaster count in the 44-year record.

Some home insurance companies are going out of business, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In states such as Florida and California, several insurers have stopped selling policies or are scaling back operations. Some insurance carriers are being watched due to potential insolvency. Other companies have increased the price of insurance to the point where homeowners can’t afford it.

Homeowners are facing new decisions about insurance, often with limited time to consider their options. A 2023 report from digital insurance agency Matic found that American homeowners experienced a 35% decrease in available policies per homeowner.

If you lose your homeowners insurance, what should you do? The obvious answer is search for a new policy. But it isn’t always that simple.

Look for a Replacement Homeowners Insurance Policy Right Away

That’s advice from Karl Susman, who owns the Susman Insurance Agency in Los Angeles. Susman often consults with legislators on insurance issues and has been an expert witness on insurance matters in state, federal and criminal courts across the United States.

Susman is based in a state that has had a lot of problems with homeowners insurance, but he says, “What's happening in California is not unique. It's happening everywhere.”

Several large insurers, including State Farm, Farmers, Allstate and others, have stopped writing or limiting new policies or and informed California homeowners that existing policies will not be renewed. This affects owners of single-family homes as well as landlords of rental properties.

In this era of climate change, it’s simply not a good climate right now for homeowners insurance. Nationally, insurance premiums rose 11.3% in 2023 and shot up 33.8% from 2018 to 2023, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. In Texas, homeowners insurance rates have climbed the most in the country, on average, 59.9%; Alaska, the least at 6.4%.

If you get a letter from your homeowners insurance that you’re going to lose coverage, “You need to start looking at that very moment,” Susman says. He adds that the letter of nonrenewal from your homeowners insurance might indicate that you still have insurance for up to six months, but you should still start the process immediately.

“Logically, you’d say, ‘OK, I’ll check when it gets close to that date,’” he says. “But you can’t do that because you could be at a point where there’s nothing available at that moment. So the best thing to do is to start checking now, and if you can find something, then take it immediately.”

The CFPB advises homeowners notified of nonrenewal or cancellation to ask the insurer to reconsider. Call your agent or company representative and ask why. Depending on the situation, the insurer might take back their decision and renew your policy.

Your mortgage lender generally requires your property to be insured . If you stop paying for coverage or let the policy expire, the mortgage lender is allowed to buy insurance and charge you for it. This is called force-placed insurance or lender-placed insurance, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

A force-placed insurance policy usually protects the lender, not you. Your cost can be twice as much as you’d regularly pay for insurance.

Under federal law, your mortgage servicer has to notify you at least 45 days before it charges you for force-placed insurance.

If You Currently Have Homeowners insurance, This Isn’t the Time to Shop Around

Hang on to the homeowners insurance policy that you have and don’t look for something better, but do protect it, Susman says.

“I tell everybody you have to keep your policy. You have to put your policy on auto pay, because if you miss a payment, and it lapses, it doesn't matter if you've been with them for 30 years, they will not reinstate that policy,” Susman says. Right now, he says, shopping for homeowners insurance is “nonexistent. We call it hunting. Shopping means you pick and choose. Hunting is ready, aim, I got it, grab it, take it.”

Know Your Homeowners Insurance Rights

Fortunately, because there are laws governing how homeowners insurance works, you’re not likely to lose your policy without any warning, says Barb Gavitt, vice president of financial services product development for A.D. Banker, a national provider of insurance and securities prelicensing, exam prep and continuing education in Overland Park, Kansas.

“There are state insurance laws in place to protect consumers against insurance companies canceling or nonrenewing homeowners insurance for any reason," Gavitt says. "They must have a very good reason, as specified in the law, and they have to give advance notice.”

But that doesn’t mean your homeowners insurance can’t be canceled suddenly and unexpectedly. It can.

“If they cancel midterm, it can only be for very specific reasons, such as nonpayment of premiums or providing false information on an application,” Gavitt says. “If a policy is cancelled midterm, the company is required to refund any unearned premium.”

Gavitt says the homeowners insurance industry is facing a lot of headwinds right now that are causing companies to drop homeowners as customers. One factor is inflation – it’s getting more expensive to rebuild homes, cutting into the insurance industry's profits. Still, Gavitt, who has been in the insurance industry for over 30 years, says that extreme weather events and more frequent natural disasters are the main culprits.

“Climate change is responsible for lengthening hurricane season, strengthening storm surges, longer wildfire seasons and higher sea levels causing flooding,” Gavitt says. “Floods, hurricanes and wildfires are not confined to just these states, and these are not the only impacts of climate change. All states are affected by climate change in some way.”

If You Can’t Find Replacement Homeowners Insurance, Keep Looking

To shop for insurance policies, contact your state’s insurance department and find out what companies are operating in your area. Look up your state’s information through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners .

You might struggle to find new homeowners insurance, but if nothing is available or desirable, there is an option: Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plans are offered in about two-thirds of the country.

FAIR plans are state-mandated property insurance plans that provide coverage to individuals and businesses who are unable to obtain insurance in the regular market, according to the insurance association. These plans are typically used as a last resort and provide basic coverage for properties that are considered high-risk or difficult to insure due to factors such as location, age or type of construction. Risk factors include natural disasters, changes in building codes and rising insurance costs.

The key phrase here is "last resort."

“It’s very bare bones coverage,” Susman says. “There’s no coverage for theft, water damage, liability. It’s designed to be high-risk.

It’s essentially “fire insurance,” he adds.

Is There a Future for Homeowners Insurance?

Both Susman and Gavitt think so.

“State regulators in California, Florida and Louisiana have all proposed and passed legislation to help ease the burden on homeowners, but things may get worse before they get better,” Gavitt says.

In 2020, she says, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners created the Climate Risk and Resiliency Task Force, with 43 state insurance commissioners participating.

The task force's goalassociation's is to ensure that the insurance industry can continue to co-exist with a future that will likely have increasingly more, and more expensive, natural disasters.

Susman sees a lot of hope, particularly for California, in the near future. He thinks by next year, thanks in part to a plan proposed by the California insurance commissioner to stabilize the market by 2025, homeowners may have less trouble getting their homes insured.

States and the insurance industry will figure something out sooner rather than later, Susman predicts. That’s because insurers, if they want to be in a profitable industry, have no choice but to make homeowners insurance work better.

“It isn’t working for anybody right now. We’re paying a ton of money and hating it, and insurers are losing money and hating it,” Susman says. “But we have to have insurance.”

Can You Build a Hurricane-Proof House?

Kristi Waterworth Aug. 30, 2023

Waves crash against a break wall in conjunction with high tide and a storm.

Compare Top Mortgage Lenders

Advertiser Disclosure

Tags: real estate , home insurance , insurance

Top Real Estate Companies in Dallas

Maurie Backman May 24, 2024

How To Avoid Real Estate Scams in 2024

Gerard Splendore May 24, 2024

The Fastest-Growing Places in the U.S.

Haley Bartel May 22, 2024

Best Places to Live FAQ

May 21, 2024

Best Affordable Places to Live 2024-2025

A.R. Cabral May 21, 2024

Best Places to Live in 2024-2025

Dawn Bradbury May 21, 2024

The 25 Best Places to Live in the U.S.

Erika Giovanetti May 21, 2024

Why Naples Is the Best Place to Live

Kara Coleman Fields May 21, 2024

Best Apps for Finding Apartments

Josephine Nesbit May 20, 2024

How Do I Find My Property Lines?

Your Home: Market vs. Assessed Value

Josephine Nesbit May 17, 2024

Common Seller and Buyer Mistakes

Steven Gottlieb May 10, 2024

How I Budget in the Most Expensive City

Josephine Nesbit May 9, 2024

Total vs. Usable Square Footage

Jeremy Kamm May 8, 2024

What Is Crawl Space Encapsulation?

Liz Brumer-Smith May 7, 2024

Real Estate Negotiations

Rebecca Blacker May 6, 2024

5 Outdoor Lighting Ideas for Your Yard

Josephine Nesbit May 3, 2024

At-Home Plunge Tub Options

Maurie Backman May 2, 2024

10 Driveway Ideas to Improve Curb Appeal

Geoff Williams May 1, 2024

NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Alexa, can you help me with my child’s homework?

Share this with

Amazon Alexa smart assistant device connected at home

What did you do when you couldn’t solve a tricky maths equation?

Did you search for the answer on Google, skip doing the homework altogether and tell your teacher dog ate it, or watch as your parents asked Alexa for the answer?

As bizarre as it may sound, the latter scenario is happening at an alarming rate, as parents and grandparents struggle to help kids complete their homework – particularly mathematics.

There comes a time when homework becomes a little too advanced for parents to help with, especially as many forget how to do tricky long divisions, algebra or the names of all the triangles once they finish school . With over 500 million Alexa-enabled devices sold worldwide, people are using technology to their advantage when it comes to maths.

New data commissioned by the Department for Education ’s Skills for Life campaign and Kindred found that 54% of parents would say they ‘would struggle to know where to start’ if left to their own decisions when helping children with their maths homework.

The Skills for Life campaign is encouraging adults of all ages to up their skills and learn something new, and to boost their confidence when helping their children at home and potentially improve their own career prospects.

Of the 2,250 adults surveyed, 69% said they use the internet to help solve schoolwork problems and 20% reported using virtual assistants, like Alexa and Google Assistant, to help tutor their kids at home. Maths was revealed to cause the most angst and was voted the least favourite homework subject among parents and grandparents.

Rear view of girl writing homework on table while sitting at home

The data comes as education groups raise concerns about the growing use of AI in students’ work. Asking a virtual assistant for help on a task you plan to finish yourself is quite different to asking ChatGPT to come up with the answers for you, it raises questions about how much we rely on technology.

A 16-year-old student identified only as Fiore previously told Metro.co.uk that he turned to ChatGPT when he realised an English essay was due the next day. It’s 2024 after all, and his story serves as a stark reminder that the days of cramming the assignment into an all-nighter or turning to SparkNotes for help are long gone.

Although many people would fear plagiarism detectors or eagle-eyed lecturers spotting AI-generated essays , the student wasn’t afraid about being caught.

However, not all students are using AI to cheat and not all are using ChatGPT, with some turning to Gemini, which was developed by Google. Chatbots have also been found to be helpful for students with dyslexia when it comes to comprehending in-depth academic texts.

Jane Basnett, director of digital learning at Downe House School in Berkshire admits that homework can be tricky for parents. ‘In the old days, parents turned to the Encyclopaedia Britannica to find responses, visited the library with their child or they asked a more informed friend,’ she told Metro.co.uk. ‘They had conversations and made discoveries about different topics that perhaps they had not known about before.’

This practice, however, has changed drastically now that technology is just one tap, swipe or voice command away. ‘Finding the knowledge is one thing, understanding it and engaging with it properly is another.

‘Parents need to encourage their child to understand the GenAI output and to put their own responses together.

‘These are just the sort of conversations that teachers are having with their students in classrooms across the country. Gen AI (generative artificial intelligence) is a tool that can very quickly do your homework for you but in doing so, it takes away the key important elements of education: learning, discovering and critical thinking.’

One dad, Paul Duggan, 68, from London made a huge life change after realising he couldn’t help his daughter with her homework. He completed a Skills for Life Numeracy course in 2020, when his daughter Rebecca was 10, after she inspired him to sign up.

He has since gone on to achieve a Functional Skills qualification in maths, which is equivalent to a Maths GCSE.

‘I always had a difficult relationship with maths,’ he said. ‘I think a lot of people do. When my daughter, Rebecca, started needing more help with her homework I realised that if I didn’t tackle my fear of numbers now, not only would I be unable to help, but I’d also risk passing on my negative relationship with maths, which I certainly didn’t want to do.’

Not all parents will be able to find the time to brush up on their maths skills, as they often have to balance full-time jobs, the needs of other children, the cost of living and general life stuff. But for those like Paul who could, it has proven to be invaluable.

‘Signing up to the Skills for Life course was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s helped boost my confidence with everyday sums, and I’ve also grown a lot closer to my daughter, Rebecca, in the process, helping her solve equations and more complex problems as she studies for her maths GSCE.’

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing [email protected] .

MORE : Google’s AI Overview is already becoming a little unhinged

MORE : Terrible at tanning? Shoppers say this glow-giving serum is a game-changer

MORE : Microsoft outage takes down Bing, DuckDuckGo and ChatGPT

Sign up to our guide to what’s on in London, trusted reviews, brilliant offers and competitions. London’s best bits in your inbox

By ticking this box, you confirm you are over the age of 18*. Privacy Policy »

Mixed-race, dark hair in a ponytail, light-blue denim type jacket, white…

To the pretty lady in yoga pants, a T-shirt, sneakers and shades, pulling…

Enter your birthday for your free daily horoscope sent straight to your inbox!

Get us in your feed

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

What is ChatGPT and why does it matter? Here's what you need to know

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot with natural language processing (NLP) that allows you to have human-like conversations to complete various tasks. The generative AI tool can answer questions and assist you with tasks such as composing emails, essays, code, and more.

Also : How to use ChatGPT: What you need to know now

It's currently open to use for free . A paid subscription version called ChatGPT Plus launched in February 2023 with access to priority access to OpenAI's latest models and updates.

Who made ChatGPT?

AI startup OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. OpenAI has also developed DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 , popular AI image generators , and Whisper, an automatic speech recognition system.

Who owns ChatGPT currently?

OpenAI owns ChatGPT. Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI thanks to multiyear, multi-billion dollar investments. Elon Musk was an investor when OpenAI was first founded in 2015, but has since completely severed ties with the startup and created his own AI chatbot, Grok .

How can you access ChatGPT?

On April 1, 2024, OpenAI stopped requiring you to log in to use ChatGPT. Now, you can access ChatGPT simply by visiting chat.openai.com . You can also access ChatGPT via an app on your iPhone or Android device.

Once you visit the site, you can start chatting away with ChatGPT. A great way to get started is by asking a question, similar to what you would do with Google. You can ask as many questions as you'd like.

Also: ChatGPT no longer requires a login, but you might want one anyway. Here's why

There are still some perks to creating an OpenAI account, such saving and reviewing your chat history and accessing custom instructions. Creating an OpenAI account is entirely free and easy. You can even log in with your Google account.

For step-by-step instructions, check out ZDNET's guide on how to start using ChatGPT .

Is there a ChatGPT app?

Yes, an official ChatGPT app is available for both iPhone and Android users.

Also: ChatGPT dropped a free app for iPhones. Does it live up to the hype?

Make sure to download OpenAI's app, as there are a plethora of copycat fake apps listed on Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store that are not affiliated with the startup.

Is ChatGPT available for free?

ChatGPT is free to use, regardless of what you use it for, including writing, coding, and much more.

There is a subscription option , ChatGPT Plus, that users can take advantage of that costs $20/month. The paid subscription model guarantees users extra perks, such as priority access to GPT-4o and the latest upgrades.

Also: ChatGPT vs ChatGPT Plus: Is it worth the subscription fee?

Although the subscription price may seem steep, it is the same amount as Microsoft Copilot Pro and Google One AI, Microsoft's and Google's premium AI offerings.

The free version is still a solid option as it can access the same model and most of the same perks. One major exception: only subscribers get guaranteed access to GPT-4o when the model is at capacity.

I tried using ChatGPT and it says it's at capacity. What does that mean?

The ChatGPT website operates using servers. When too many people hop onto these servers, they may overload and can't process your request. If this happens to you, you can visit the site later when fewer people are trying to access the tool. You can also keep the tab open and refresh it periodically.

Also: The best AI chatbots

If you want to skip the wait and have reliable access, you can subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for general access during peak times, faster response times, and priority access to new features and improvements, including priority access to GPT-4o.

You can also try using Bing's AI chatbot, Copilot . This chatbot is free to use, runs on GPT-4, has no wait times, and can access the internet for more accurate information.

What is ChatGPT used for?

ChatGPT has many functions in addition to answering simple questions. ChatGPT can compose essays , have philosophical conversations, do math, and even code for you .

The tasks ChatGPT can help with also don't have to be so ambitious. For example, my favorite use of ChatGPT is for help creating basic lists for chores, such as packing and grocery shopping, and to-do lists that make my daily life more productive. The possibilities are endless.

ZDNET has published many ChatGPT how-to guides. Below are some of the most popular ones.

Use ChatGPT to:

Write an essay
Create an app
Build your resume
Write Excel formulas
Summarize content
Write a cover letter
Start an Etsy business
Create charts and tables
Write Adruino drivers

Can ChatGPT generate images?

Yes, ChatGPT can generate images, but only for ChatGPT Plus subscribers. Since OpenAI discontinued DALL-E 2 in February 2024, the only way to access its most advanced AI image generator, DALL-E 3, through OpenAI's offerings is via its chatbot and ChatGPT Plus subscription.

Also: DALL-E adds new ways to edit and create AI-generated images. Learn how to use it

Microsoft's Copilot offers image generation, which is also powered by DALL-E 3, in its chatbot for free. This is a great alternative if you don't want to shell out the money for ChatGPT Plus.

How does ChatGPT work?

ChatGPT runs on a large language model (LLM) architecture created by OpenAI called the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT). Since its launch, the free version of ChatGPT ran on a fine-tuned model in the GPT-3.5 series until May 2024, when the startup upgraded the model to GPT-4o.

Also: Here's a deep dive into how ChatGPT works

With a subscription to ChatGPT Plus , you can access GPT-3.5, GPT-4, or GPT-4o . Plus, users also have the added perk of priority access to GPT-4o, even when it is at capacity, while free users get booted down to GPT-3.5.

Generative AI models of this type are trained on vast amounts of information from the internet, including websites, books, news articles, and more.

What does ChatGPT stand for?

As mentioned above, the last three letters in ChatGPT's namesake stand for Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT), a family of large language models created by OpenAI that uses deep learning to generate human-like, conversational text.

Also: What does GPT stand for? Understanding GPT 3.5, GPT 4, GPT-4 Turbo, and more

The "Chat" part of the name is simply a callout to its chatting capabilities.

Is ChatGPT better than a search engine?

ChatGPT is a language model created to converse with the end user. A search engine indexes web pages on the internet to help users find information. One is not better than the other, as each suit different purposes.

When searching for as much up-to-date, accurate information as you can access, your best bet is a search engine. It will provide you with pages upon pages of sources you can peruse.

Also: The best AI search engines of 2024: Google, Perplexity, and more

As of May, the free version of ChatGPT can get responses from both the GPT-4o model and the web. It will only pull its answer from, and ultimately list, a handful of sources, as opposed to showing nearly endless search results.

For example, I used GPT-4o to answer, "What is the weather today in San Francisco?" The response told me it searched four sites and provided links to them.

If you are looking for a platform that can explain complex topics in an easy-to-understand manner, then ChatGPT might be what you want. If you want the best of both worlds, there are plenty of AI search engines on the market that combine both.

What are ChatGPT's limitations?

Despite its impressive capabilities, ChatGPT still has limitations. Users sometimes need to reword questions multiple times for ChatGPT to understand their intent. A bigger limitation is a lack of quality in responses, which can sometimes be plausible-sounding but are verbose or make no practical sense.

Instead of asking for clarification on ambiguous questions, the model guesses what your question means, which can lead to poor responses. Generative AI models are also subject to hallucinations, which can result in inaccurate responses.

Does ChatGPT give wrong answers?

As mentioned above, ChatGPT, like all language models, has limitations and can give nonsensical answers and incorrect information, so it's important to double-check the data it gives you.

Also: 8 ways to reduce ChatGPT hallucinations

OpenAI recommends that you provide feedback on what ChatGPT generates by using the thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons to improve its underlying model. You can even join the startup's Bug Bounty program , which offers up to $20,000 for reporting security bugs and safety issues.

Can ChatGPT refuse to answer my prompts?

AI systems like ChatGPT can and do reject inappropriate requests . The AI assistant can identify inappropriate submissions to prevent the generation of unsafe content.

Also: 6 things ChatGPT can't do (and another 20 it refuses to do)

These submissions include questions that violate someone's rights, are offensive, are discriminatory, or involve illegal activities. The ChatGPT model can also challenge incorrect premises, answer follow-up questions, and even admit mistakes when you point them out.

These guardrails are important. AI models can generate advanced, realistic content that can be exploited by bad actors for harm, such as spreading misinformation about public figures and influencing elections .

Can I chat with ChatGPT?

Although some people use ChatGPT for elaborate functions, such as writing code or even malware , you can use ChatGPT for more mundane activities, such as having a friendly conversation.

Also: Do you like asking ChatGPT questions? You could get paid (a lot) for it

Some conversation starters could be as simple as, "I am hungry, what food should I get?" or as elaborate as, "What do you think happens in the afterlife?" Either way, ChatGPT is sure to have an answer for you.

Is ChatGPT safe?

People are expressing concerns about AI chatbots replacing or atrophying human intelligence. For example, a chatbot can write an article on any topic efficiently (though not necessarily accurately) within seconds, potentially eliminating the need for human writers.

Chatbots can also write an entire essay within seconds, making it easier for students to cheat or avoid learning how to write properly. This even led some school districts to block access when ChatGPT initially launched.

Also: Generative AI can be the academic assistant an underserved student needs

Now, not only have many of those schools decided to unblock the technology, but some higher education institutions have been catering their academic offerings to AI-related coursework.

Another concern with AI chatbots is the possible spread of misinformation. ChatGPT itself says: "My responses are not intended to be taken as fact, and I always encourage people to verify any information they receive from me or any other source." OpenAI also notes that ChatGPT sometimes writes "plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers."

Also: Microsoft and OpenAI detect and disrupt nation-state cyber threats that use AI, report shows

Lastly, there are ethical concerns regarding the information ChatGPT was trained on, since the startup scraped the internet to train the chatbot.

It also automatically uses people's interactions with the free version of the chatbot to further train its models, raising privacy concerns. OpenAI lets you turn off training in ChatGPT's settings.

Does ChatGPT plagiarize?

Yes, sort of. OpenAI scraped the internet to train ChatGPT. Therefore, the technology's knowledge is influenced by other people's work. Since there is no guarantee that when OpenAI outputs its answers it is entirely original, the chatbot may regurgitate someone else's work in your answer, which is considered plagiarism.

Is there a ChatGPT detector?

Concerns about students using AI to cheat mean the need for a ChatGPT text detector is becoming more evident.

In January 2023, OpenAI released a free tool to target this problem. Unfortunately, OpenAI's "classifier" tool could only correctly identify 26% of AI-written text with a "likely AI-written" designation. Furthermore, it provided false positives 9% of the time, incorrectly identifying human-written work as AI-produced.

The tool performed so poorly that, six months after being released, OpenAI it shut down "due to its low rate of accuracy." Despite the tool's failure, the startup claims to be researching more effective techniques for AI text identification.

Also: OpenAI unveils text-to-video model and the results are astonishing

Other AI detectors exist on the market, including GPT-2 Output Detector , Writer AI Content Detector , and Content at Scale's AI Content Detection tool. ZDNET put these tools to the test, and the results were underwhelming: all three were found to be unreliable sources for spotting AI, repeatedly giving false negatives. Here are ZDNET's full test results .

What are the common signs something was written by ChatGPT?

Although tools aren't sufficient for detecting ChatGPT-generated writing, a study shows that humans could detect AI-written text by looking for politeness. The study's results indicate that ChatGPT's writing style is extremely polite . And unlike humans, it cannot produce responses that include metaphors, irony, or sarcasm.

Will my conversations with ChatGPT be used for training?

One of the major risks when using generative AI models is that they become more intelligent by being trained on user inputs. Therefore, when familiarizing yourself with how to use ChatGPT, you might wonder if your specific conversations will be used for training and, if so, who can view your chats.

Also: This ChatGPT update fixed one of my biggest productivity issues with the AI chatbot

OpenAI will use your conversations with the free chatbot to automatically training data to refine its models. You can opt out of the startup using your data for model training by clicking on the question mark in the bottom left-hand corner, Settings, and turning off "Improve the model for everyone."

What is GPT-4?

GPT-4 is OpenAI's language model that is much more advanced than its predecessor, GPT-3.5. Users can access GPT-4 by subscribing to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month or using Microsoft's Copilot.

Also: What does GPT stand for? Understanding GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and more

GPT-4 has advanced intellectual capabilities, meaning it outperforms GPT-3.5 in a series of simulated benchmark exams. The newer model also supposedly produces fewer hallucinations.

What is GPT-4o?

GPT-4o is OpenAI's latest, fastest, and most advanced flagship model. As the name implies, it has the same intelligence as GPT-4. However, the "o" in the title stands for "omni," referring to its multimodal capabilities, which allow it to understand text, audio, image, and video inputs and output text, audio, and image outputs.

Also: 6 ways OpenAI just supercharged ChatGPT for free users

The model is 50% cheaper in the API than GPT-4 Turbo while still matching its English and coding capabilities and outperforming it in non-English languages, vision, and audio understanding -- a big win for developers.

Are there alternatives to ChatGPT worth considering?

Although ChatGPT gets the most buzz, other options are just as good -- and might even be better suited to your needs. ZDNET has created a list of the best chatbots, which have all been tested by us and show which tool is best for your requirements.

Also: 4 things Claude AI can do that ChatGPT can't

Despite ChatGPT's extensive abilities, there are major downsides to the AI chatbot. If you want to try the technology, there are plenty of other options: Copilot , Claude , Perplexity , Jasper , and more.

Is ChatGPT smart enough to pass benchmark exams?

Yes, ChatGPT is capable of passing a series of benchmark exams. A professor at Wharton, the University of Pennsylvania's business school, used ChatGPT to take an MBA exam and the results were quite impressive.

ChatGPT not only passed the exam, but the tool scored between a B- and a B. The professor, Christian Terwiesch, was impressed at its basic operations management, process analysis questions, and explanations.

OpenAI also tested the chatbot's ability to pass benchmark exams. Although ChatGPT could pass many of these benchmark exams, its scores were usually in the lower percentile. However, with GPT-4, ChatGPT can score much higher.

For example, ChatGPT using GPT-3.5 scored in the lower 10th percentile of a simulated Bar Exam, while GPT-4 scored in the top 10th percentile. You can see more examples from OpenAI in the chart below.

Can ChatGPT be used for job application assistance?

Yes, ChatGPT is a great resource to help with job applications. Undertaking a job search can be tedious and difficult, and ChatGPT can help you lighten the load. ChatGPT can build your resume and write a cover letter .

Also : How to use ChatGPT to write an essay

If your application has any written supplements, you can use ChatGPT to help you write those essays or personal statements .

What are the most common ChatGPT plugins, and how do I use them?

Plugins allowed ChatGPT to connect to third-party applications, including access to real-time information on the web. The plugins expanded ChatGPT's abilities , allowing it to assist with many more activities, such as planning a trip or finding a place to eat.

Also: My two favorite ChatGPT Plus features and the remarkable things I can do with them

On March 19, 2024, however, OpenAI stopped allowing users to install new plugins or start new conversations with existing ones. Instead, OpenAI replaced plugins with GPTs , which are easier for developers to build.

Users can find 3 million ChatGPT chatbots, also known as GPTs, on the GPT store. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of spam in the GPT store.

What is Microsoft's involvement with ChatGPT?

Microsoft was an early investor in OpenAI, the AI startup behind ChatGPT, long before ChatGPT was released to the public. Microsoft's first involvement with OpenAI was in 2019, when the company invested $1 billion, and then another $2 billion in the years after. In January 2023, Microsoft extended its partnership with OpenAI through a multiyear, multi-billion dollar investment .

Also: ChatGPT vs. Copilot: Which AI chatbot is better for you?

Neither company disclosed the investment value, but unnamed sources told Bloomberg that it could total $10 billion over multiple years. In return, OpenAI's exclusive cloud-computing provider is Microsoft Azure, powering all OpenAI workloads across research, products, and API services.

Microsoft has also used its OpenAI partnership to revamp its Bing search engine and improve its browser.

On February 7, 2023, Microsoft unveiled a new Bing tool , now known as Copilot, that runs on OpenAI's GPT-4, customized specifically for search.

What does Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) have to do with ChatGPT?

In February 2023, Microsoft unveiled a new version of Bing -- and its standout feature was its integration with ChatGPT. When it was announced, Microsoft shared that Bing Chat, now Copilot, was powered by a next-generation version of OpenAI's large language model, making it "more powerful than ChatGPT." Five weeks after the launch, Microsoft revealed that Copilot had been running on GPT-4 before the model had even launched.

How does Copilot compare to ChatGPT?

Copilot uses OpenAI's GPT-4, which means that since its launch, it has been more efficient and capable than the standard, free version of ChatGPT. At the time, Copilot boasted several other features over ChatGPT, such as access to the internet, knowledge of current information, and footnotes.

In May 2024, however, OpenAI supercharged the free version of its chatbot with GPT-4o. The upgrade gave users GPT-4 level intelligence, the ability to get responses from the web via ChatGPT Browse with Bing, analyze data, chat about photos and documents, use GPTs, access the GPT Store, and Voice Mode. Therefore, after the upgrade, ChatGPT reclaimed its crown as the best AI chatbot.

What is Gemini and how does it relate to ChatGPT?

Gemini is Google's AI chat service, a rival to ChatGPT. On February 6, 2023, Google introduced its experimental AI chat service, which was then called Google Bard. Over a month after the announcement, Google began rolling out access to Bard first via a waitlist . Now, it is available to the general public.

Artificial Intelligence

Chatgpt vs. copilot: which ai chatbot is better for you, how to use chatgpt (and how to access gpt-4o), what does gpt stand for understanding gpt-3.5, gpt-4, gpt-4o, and more.

15-year refinance rates

Current trends

Understanding 15-year refinance rates

Benefits and drawbacks
How to get the best rate

Calculating savings and costs

15-year cash-out refinance, 15-year mortgage refinance rates: compare current rates.

Affiliate links for the products on this page are from partners that compensate us (see our advertiser disclosure with our list of partners for more details). However, our opinions are our own. See how we rate mortgages to write unbiased product reviews.

Refinancing into a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage can help homeowners save on interest and pay off their mortgages faster.

Check out today's 15-year refinance rates to see if one of these loans makes sense for you.

In April, 15-year refinance rates averaged 6.41%, according to Zillow data. This is nine basis points up from the month before. Refinance rates have been somewhat volatile so far in May, but are overall trending similar to last month.

See how today's 15-year refinance rates compare to other types of mortgage refinance loans.

Current trends in 15-year refinance rates

Current market conditions.

Record high inflation pushed mortgage rates up across the board over the past few years. Inflation has come down a lot since it peaked in 2022, but it's still relatively high.

Once inflation slows further, mortgage rates should go down . But because inflation has been sticky so far this year, we'll likely need to wait longer than initially expected for lower rates.

Predictions for rate movements in 2024

If you're thinking about refinancing, you could have an opportunity to do so if rates go down later in 2024. But they probably won't drop significantly this year, so it may be better to wait until 2025 or later.

How these rates are determined

Mortgage rates are largely determined by investor demand, which in turn is influenced by what's going on in the broader US economy.

In general, when the economy is strong or inflation is high, mortgage rates go up. When economic growth is slow or we're in a recession, mortgage rates typically go down.

Rates also depend on the financial profile of the borrower getting a mortgage. The more creditworthy you are, the better your rate.

Benefits and drawbacks of refinancing to a 15-year mortgage

"The benefits are that you will pay off your mortgage sooner," says Jose Hernandez, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in Chicago. "However, the drawback is that your monthly payment will be much higher compared to a 30-year mortgage."

Hernandez advises that borrowers should only opt for a 15-year mortgage if they can lower their interest rate by more than two percentage points or if their new mortgage payment will be similar to their current one.

"The key is to have a monthly payment that you will be able to afford every month without struggling," he says.

Get a lower rate

Mortgage rates on a 15-year refinance are lower than 30-year refinance rates . The shorter the term, the lower your rate.

Build equity faster

Because you're paying off your mortgage faster, you'll build equity more quickly than you would with a 30-year term.

Less interest paid over the life of the loan

Because the terms are shorter and interest rates are lower, borrowers with a 15-year mortgage will pay less in interest over the life of the loan compared to a borrower with a 30-year mortgage.

Pay off your mortgage sooner

If you plan to stay in your home long term, getting a 15-year mortgage can be beneficial because you'll own your home outright much faster than with a 30-year mortgage.

Higher monthly payments

The downside of a shorter mortgage term is that you'll have larger monthly payments. This leaves less money in your budget for other needs, wants, or financial goals.

Harder to qualify for

If the higher monthly payment that comes with a 15-year mortgage pushes your debt-to-income ratio too high, you might not qualify to refinance.

How to get the best 15-year refinance rate

Improve your credit score.

You can pay down debt, limit your credit card usage, or ask your credit card issuer for a credit line increase to improve your credit score .

Shop around and compare lender offers

Mortgage rates and loan fees vary by lender, so be sure to compare offers from at least two or three different lenders to see who can offer you the best overall deal.

If you like your current mortgage lender , you may decide to get preapproved there first. But don't assume that they'll still have the best mortgage refinance rate — there may be another lender that can offer you a better deal now.

Mortgage calculator

Use Insider's free mortgage calculator to see how much you could save on interest by choosing a 15-year term for your mortgage refinance.

Mortgage Calculator

Paying a 25% higher down payment would save you $8,916.08 on interest charges
Lowering the interest rate by 1% would save you $51,562.03
Paying an additional $500 each month would reduce the loan length by 146 months

Considering closing costs and break-even points

Refinancing is typically only worth it if you plan to stay in the home long enough that you pass the break-even point. This is the point at which you've recouped the amount you spent on the refinance.

For example, say you paid $2,000 in closing costs to refinance and the new mortgage is $100 less per month than your original mortgage. Your break-even point is the point at which you've saved enough each month to equal $2,000.

To find this, divide 2,000 by 100. If 2,000 ÷ 100 = 20, then that means it would take 20 months, or a year and eight months, to break even.

When you refinance your mortgage, you'll need to decide whether you want to do a rate-and-term or cash-out refinance . The difference is that you won't be taking any equity out of your home with a rate-and-term refinance.

A cash-out refinance lets you tap into some of the money you've gained in your home and convert it into cash. You'll get that cash at closing and you can use it for whatever you want, such as a home improvement or to pay off other debts.

15-year refinance FAQs

The lender with the best 15-year refinance rates can vary a lot from one borrower to the next. Mortgage rates differ depending on where you live and your financial profile. This is why comparing offers from multiple lenders is so important.

Average 15-year mortgage rates hit 2.10% in the last week of July 2021 and remained there through the first week of August 2021, according to Freddie Mac data. This is the lowest 15-year rates have ever been since Freddie Mac started tracking them in 1991.

If you're looking to take cash out of your home and stay in or refinance into a shorter term, a 15-year cash-out refinance could be a great option for you. Just remember that when you refinance into a shorter term, your monthly payment will go up.

The main pro of refinancing into a 15-year mortgage is that the shorter term will allow you to save money on interest because you'll get a lower interest rate and pay less in interest over the life of the loan. But the main con is that you'll have a larger monthly payment than you would with a longer term.

Shorter mortgage terms have lower interest rates compared to longer terms, so you'll pay less in interest on a 15-year refinance compared to a 30-year refinance. Because you're borrowing the money for a shorter amount of time, there's less risk to the lender, so they're able to offer lower rates on shorter terms.

To get the best 15-year refinance rate, you'll want to make sure you have a great credit score, a decent amount of equity in your home, and a low debt-to-income ratio.

Not necessarily. Mortgage rates have increased significantly in recent years. If you got your current mortgage when rates were historically low, you probably wouldn't save by refinancing into a 15-year mortgage, even if you're currently paying a 30-year loan. You'll also need to consider the overall cost of the loan, including closing costs. c

Mortgage rates, including 15-year refinance rates, are relatively high right now. Inflation has pushed mortgage rates up across the board, and rates likely won't fall until the economy cools.

You can use a mortgage calculator or refinance calculator to see how much you could save each month and over the life of the loan. But remember to also calculate how long it will take you to recoup any closing costs you might pay.

Main content

7 tips to improve your website speed in 2024 by DebugBear

A fast-loading website provides a good user experience and helps increase conversion rates . Google also recently updated its documentation to confirm that Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems.

Ready to make your website fast? Here are seven tips to help you analyze your site speed and identify potential optimizations.

1. Analyze a network request waterfall for your website

A request waterfall visualization can tell you exactly what happens when opening your website. For example:

What resources are downloaded?
When do resources start loading, and how long does each request take?
How does this correlate with what visitors can see as the website is loading?

This information can serve as the basis for identifying the highest-impact optimizations. You can run a free page speed test on your website to generate a waterfall view.

Request waterfalls provide a lot of detail and can look intimidating. Let’s break down exactly what you need to look for.

To interpret a waterfall, look for three key milestones in the loading process of a website:

Time to First Byte (TTFB) : How long does the website server take to return the HTML document?
First Contentful Paint (FCP) : When does the first page content become visible?
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) : When does the largest content element become visible?

Unless there are redirects, the HTML document will be the first request in the waterfall. Before the TTFB milestone, no other resources can start loading and no content can become visible. Therefore your server TTFB represents a minimum value for the FCP and LCP scores.

Next, we’ll look for render-blocking requests . These are requests for important additional resources that need to load before page content becomes visible.

In this example, we can see that there are four render-blocking CSS stylesheet requests. Once these files have finished loading we can see the first content appearing in the rendering filmstrip in the top right.

To optimize the FCP you can:

Remove render-blocking resources altogether.
Reduce the download size of CSS files .
Load render-blocking scripts asynchronously .
Speed up the resource requests themselves.

For example, in the example above we can see that the app.css file is over 100 kilobytes large. This can take some time to download, especially on slower mobile data connections.

To speed up requests, you’ll also want to look at what servers the browser is connecting to when opening the page. A new connection is needed for every new domain that a resource is loaded from, and each new server connection takes some time to establish .

You can identify server connections in the waterfall by looking for three small rectangles in front of the main request. These rectangles represent the network round trips needed for the DNS lookup, TCP connection and SSL connection.

Finally, we’ll look at the LCP milestone. If the largest content element is an image this can usually be clearly seen by looking for the “LCP” badge in the waterfall view.

After the LCP image has been downloaded the browser quickly starts updating the page and displaying the image. You can see the LCP metric marked by the red line in the waterfall view.

To make it easier to analyze the request waterfall data, many performance tools like DebugBear also include automated page speed recommendations.

2. Load the most important content first

When loading a website, less important content shouldn’t take bandwidth away from more important requests.

In the example above, lazy loading is applied to the LCP image. That means the browser won’t prioritize this resource. Once the page starts rendering the browser realizes that the image is actually important and the request priority is changed.

As a result, the image only starts loading late, and other requests also use up network bandwidth at that point. We can see that by looking at the dark blue lines in the request inside the waterfall. The dark blue lines show when response data is received for each request.

To ensure an LCP image is prioritized you can:

Make sure it’s not lazy-loaded.
Use the fetchpriority attribute to mark it as high importance.
Consider using a preload tag to help the browser load the image early.

3. Reduce download sizes of key early requests

Larger files take longer to download, as bandwidth is limited and loading a large amount of data requires multiple network round trips between the client and the server.

For example, this screenshot shows a large CSS file:

A When we look into it more deeply we can see that it contains many images that have been embedded as text. That means that loading these images blocks rendering, even though they are not important for the page and may not be used at all.

To reduce file sizes you can:

Use modern image formats like WebP and Avif.
Use Brotli compression for text content (like HTML, CSS and JavaScript).
Analyze your HTML or CSS code to identify embedded images, fonts and data.

4. Compare real user data to lab data

Google provides real user data for most websites as a part of their PageSpeed Insights tool. Comparing this data to the results of their lab-based Lighthouse test can help you better understand what’s happening on your website.

The lab test result typically reports worse metrics than real user data. That’s because the Lighthouse test uses a slower network connection and CPU than most visitors will have.

Two common reasons your lab testing results are faster than real user data:

The PageSpeed insights test is reporting unreliable data .
The lab test is hitting a cache while most real users experience slow server responses.

5. Check how your website performance has changed over time

The real user dataset that Google provides based on the Chrome User Experience report (CrUX) also includes historical data, even though it isn’t reported in PageSpeed Insights. Seeing how your website performance has changed over time lets you see when a problem was introduced and identify the root cause.

To view historical Core Web Vitals data for your website you can run a DebugBear Core Web Vitals test and then check the Web Vitals tab for a 25-week trend.

Each CrUX data value covers a rolling 28-day time period, if an issue occurs it will gradually impact your scores over the following four weeks.

6. Set up continuous website speed monitoring

If you want to catch regressions (i.e., a change was deployed that had a negative impact on website speed) as soon as they happen you need to set up page speed monitoring for your website.

DebugBear is a monitoring service that provides two types of monitoring:

Lab-based testing: Run page speed tests on a schedule in a controlled lab environment.
Real-user monitoring: See how your visitors experience your website.

Setting up monitoring for your website will alert you whenever there’s a regression and then compare the data before and after to identify the cause of the slowdown.

7. Look at metrics beyond load time

Website performance isn’t just about the initial loading speed as measured by the LCP metric. Google also considers how quickly a website responds to user interactions, as measured by the Interaction to Next Paint (INP) metric that became a Core Web Vital on March 12.

While LCP mostly depends on what’s loaded over the network, INP looks at CPU processing and how long it takes before the page can process an interaction and update the UI to be ready for the next interaction.

Measuring INP requires user interaction, which makes it difficult to test in a lab environment. There are some lab-based INP testing tools like the INP Debugger , but they can’t identify all possible user interactions or tell you which elements users interact with most often.

To improve Interaction to Next Paint you need real user monitoring (RUM) data. This data can tell you:

What pages have slow INP?
What elements users are interacting with?
What scripts are contributing to delays?

To improve your website speed you first must understand what’s slowing it down. Start by running a free page speed test .

A website monitoring tool helps you keep track of Core Web Vitals over time and get notified of regressions. You can start a free 14-day trial of DebugBear here .

7 tips to improve your website speed in 2024 by DebugBear

IMAGES

Pros and Cons of Homework Infographic
7 Types of Homework for Students (2024)
27 Top Homework Pros and Cons (2024)
10 Homework Benefits (Purpose & Facts)
15 Reasons Why Homework Is Important?
5 Ways to Make Homework Fun for Kids (Infographic)

VIDEO

HOW CAN YOU COMPARE 'POVERTY-STRICKEN' GHANA TO CANADA? BLAKK RASTA F!RES HAWA KOOMSON
Schoolwork vs Homework vs Exam
What Can You Compare This Spirograph Pattern To? #spirograph
Manic Mike on the feeling of working out 😳

COMMENTS

101 Compare and Contrast Essay Ideas for Students
Recycling vs. Landfill. Motorcycle vs. Bicycle. Halogen vs. Incandescent. Newton vs. Einstein. Go on vacation vs. Staycation. Rock vs. Scissors. Cite this Article. These compare and contrast essay topics provide teachers and students with great and fun ideas for home and class work.
85 Impressive Compare and Contrast Essay Topics for 2021
85 Inspirational Compare and Contrast Essay Topics. In our daily life, we often compare things to make the right decision. However, most school children and college students feel puzzled when assigned to develop a comparison essay and think is homework harmful or helpful. The stumbling block here is a need to choose among compare and contrast ...
What Kinds of Homework Seem to be Most Effective?
Take the child's grade and multiply by 10. So first-graders should have roughly 10 minutes of homework a night, 40 minutes for fourth-graders, on up to two hours for seniors in high school. A lot of of schools use this. Even the National PTA officially endorses it.
What's the Right Amount of Homework?
The National PTA and the National Education Association support the " 10-minute homework guideline "—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students' needs, not the amount of time spent on it.
Brainly
Get personalized homework help for free — for real. Join for free. Brainly is the knowledge-sharing community where hundreds of millions of students and experts put their heads together to crack their toughest homework questions.
How to Help Students Develop the Skills They Need to Complete Homework
The effects of homework are mixed. While adolescents across middle and high school have an array of life situations that can make doing homework easier or harder, it's well known that homework magnifies inequity.However, we also know that learning how to manage time and work independently outside of the school day is valuable for lifelong learning.
How to Do Homework: 15 Expert Tips and Tricks
Here's how it works: first, set a timer for 25 minutes. This is going to be your work time. During this 25 minutes, all you can do is work on whatever homework assignment you have in front of you. No email, no text messaging, no phone calls—just homework. When that timer goes off, you get to take a 5 minute break.
Designing Effective Homework
Reinforce and allow students to practice skills learned in the classroom. Help students develop good study habits and routines. Foster positive feelings about school. In grades 6-12, homework should: Reinforce and allow students to practice skills learned in the classroom. Prepare students for engagement and discussion during the next lesson.
High-quality homework: How to assign the right amount, and the most
Research suggests that homework is most effective when: Assignments promote curiosity, leading to " autonomous, self-directed learning .". Students have already " demonstrated competence in the skill…before being asked to do it independently.". Teachers consider some students do not have access to the internet, a quiet working space ...
Should Kids Get Homework?
Too much, however, is harmful. And homework has a greater positive effect on students in secondary school (grades 7-12) than those in elementary. "Every child should be doing homework, but the ...
13 Ways to Make Homework More Meaningful and Engaging
The brain loves to do tasks in contexts with which it is familiar. 7. Allow students to collaborate in determining how homework will be assessed. If they help design the criteria for success, such as when they create the rubric for an assignment, they "own" the assignment.
5 alternatives to homework (that help teachers out, too)
5. Take a legit break and play. One of my favorite homework assignments that I gave my students is to go out and play. Yep, you read that right. You might be scratching your head in wonder, but there are times when I firmly believe that students need a break. I didn't assign this every single night, obviously.
The Pros and Cons of Homework
Homework also helps students develop key skills that they'll use throughout their lives: Accountability. Autonomy. Discipline. Time management. Self-direction. Critical thinking. Independent problem-solving. The skills learned in homework can then be applied to other subjects and practical situations in students' daily lives.
Mathway
Free math problem solver answers your algebra homework questions with step-by-step explanations.
Designing and Assessing Homework
The goal of Proficiency-Based Learning Simplified is to ensure that students acquire the most essential knowledge and skills they will need to succeed in school, higher education, the modern workplace, and adult life. Therefore, systems of assessment and verifying proficiency should prioritize enduring knowledge and skills—i.e., graduation standards and related performance indicators.In a ...
The 5 Best Homework Help Websites (Free and Paid!)
Best Site for Math Homework Help: Photomath. Price: Free (or $59.99 per year for premium services) Best for: Explaining solutions to math problems. This site allows you to take a picture of a math problem, and instantly pulls up a step-by-step solution, as well as a detailed explanation of the concept.
What does good homework look like?
What does good homework look like? Teachers give homework just about every night of the week. A good homework assignment can provide students with practice with a skill already taught, can prepare students for an upcoming test, and can extend a project or topic under study. A poorly designed homework assignment can bring tears and frustration ...
What's the point of homework?
These include to: establish and improve communication between parents and children about learning. help children be more responsible, confident and disciplined. practise or review material from ...
What's the right amount of homework for my students?
These differences can lead to disagreement regarding the optimal amount of homework that should be assigned. As a result, the question of how much homework to assign can be difficult to answer. Too much homework can negatively impact students in ways you might not expect. Understanding these impacts will make you a better, more effective, and ...
Alternatives To Homework: A Chart For Teachers
Homework can be useful to help students learning, but isn't always the best strategy. Here are alternatives to homework: a chart for teachers. Part of rethinking learning means rethinking the bits and pieces of the learning process-teaching strategies, writing pieces, etc.-w hich is what makes the following chart from Kathleen Cushman's ...
Studying vs Homework: 8 Things Your Child (and You) Should Know
It's about reinforcing knowledge and integrating key skills. Homework is a supplement to class material and is often a part of your child's grade. Homework is a way for the student to begin learning at their own pace while involving their parents in the process if desired. Homework often involves a lot of repetition, a common tenet of ...
Pros and Cons of Homework: What You Should Know
The more homework a student doe s, the better it is for their grades. 3. It increases student engagement and motivation. Homework has been proven to increase student engagement and motivation. When done correctly, homework can help students learn by engaging them in challenging tasks and helping them develop skills.
Compare Homework, Quiz, Test categories
Compare Homework, Quiz, and Test categories. A category is a saved set of grading, presentation, and security settings for Mastering assignments. As their names imply, the provided Homework, Quiz, and Test categories can help you classify and apply different settings to different kinds of assignments. Applying one of these provided categories ...
What to Do if You Lose Your Homeowners Insurance
The CFPB advises homeowners notified of nonrenewal or cancellation to ask the insurer to reconsider. Call your agent or company representative and ask why. Depending on the situation, the insurer might take back their decision and renew your policy. Your mortgage lender generally requires your property to be insured.
T-Mobile Rolls Out Two New Internet Plans to Give Customers Enhanced
The Un-carrier Difference. 5G Internet at T-Mobile uses the power of the Un-carrier's 5G network, the largest, fastest and most awarded 5G network in the U.S.And it keeps getting better. T-Mobile launched its 5G Home Internet service nationwide in 2021, and customers have flocked to the service ever since, making T-Mobile the fastest growing home internet provider in the U.S.
What's Flexible PLA & How Does It Compare to TPU?
by Bruno Sekyanzi, Melanie Griffin. Published May 28, 2024. Flexible PLA may seem like a oxymoron, but it's real and it's printable. Read all about it, how to print it, and how it compares to TPU! Advertisement.
Alexa, can you help me with my child's homework?
Of the 2,250 adults surveyed, 69% said they use the internet to help solve schoolwork problems and 20% reported using virtual assistants, like Alexa and Google Assistant, to help tutor their kids ...
What is ChatGPT and why does it matter? Here's what you need to know
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot with natural language processing (NLP) that allows you to have human-like conversations to complete various tasks. The generative AI tool can answer questions and assist ...
15-Year Mortgage Refinance Rates: Compare Current Rates
In April, 15-year refinance rates averaged 6.41%, according to Zillow data. This is nine basis points up from the month before. Refinance rates have been somewhat volatile so far in May, but are ...
7 tips to improve your website speed in 2024 by DebugBear
Use modern image formats like WebP and Avif. Use Brotli compression for text content (like HTML, CSS and JavaScript). Analyze your HTML or CSS code to identify embedded images, fonts and data. 4 ...