Friday, July 25, 2008

Your Calculator, The SAT and The ACT

Maybe I am old school, but I look at the calculator on the SAT and the ACT as a hindrance rather than as a useful tool. When I was a kid (many moons ago) there were no stinking calculators allowed in the testing rooms! Finally, when the test makers decided to allow calculators, did you really think that they were doing so for the students' benefit? Think about it! You can solve every math problem on the entire exam without a calculator. Remember the math is easy, its the set up that will get you every time. Never, ever, ever, use a calculator for a division problem when you are asked to solve for the remainder. Don't use a calculator when the answer choices are in fractions. When practicing math, try to solve every math problem without the use of your calculator. Use the calculator only to check for silly mathematical errors and for adding subtracting, multiplying and dividing complex numbers or numbers with decimals. That's my only exception to the NO CALCULATOR RULE!

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