What to expect from pre-calc?

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We were required to get one in Grade 9. I have a TI-83 Plus.

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if you can afford one get a TI-89. It will put the 83 to shame and make your life so much easier.

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Originally Posted by Thantos

if you can afford one get a TI-89. It will put the 83 to shame and make your life so much easier.

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Until you get to the final and realise your TI-89 can't do your problems for you anymore.

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Originally Posted by JaWiB

That sucks if you can't use a calculator on the tests, but it makes sense I guess. I know my TI-89 helped way too much in calculus (now that I think about it, it gave me an unfair advantage, but oh well).

I'd still highly recommend the TI-89. If nothing else, you can use it to check answers when you're doing homework, since it can do symbolic operations like solving equations and differentiating/integrating. You might also need to have another scientific (non-graphing) calculator if they allow that on tests.

Just don't let the calculator be a crutch! For the last two calculus courses I took, we weren't allowed to use any calculator on the tests, and I completely screwed up my derivatives on the final (which was the easiest part of the exam)

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They let you use a CAS calulcator for calculus?!?!? Back when I did it in year 12 we had 2 exams, one calc free one with a non-CAS calculator

Although I do have a Ti-83 Plus still, the most fun thing about the calculator is writing your own programs (on the calculator itself, in it's half-complete TI scripting language) :)

> They let you use a CAS calulcator for calculus?!?!? Back when I did it in year 12 we had 2 exams, one calc free one with a non-CAS calculator

Yup, but that was in high school. They were even allowed on the AP exam.

Now, there's no calculators on any math exams, but I still use my TI-89 for math homework, and it's especially useful for other classes like physics, where it is allowed on exams.

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Originally Posted by JaWiB

Yup, but that was in high school. They were even allowed on the AP exam.

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That's crap, I wasn't allowed to use mine on the AP test :mad:

(course that was 8 years ago, so I'm sure there have been changes)

We weren't allowed graphics calculators in physics either :(, man you guys get it easy ;)

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Originally Posted by zacs7

We weren't allowed graphics calculators in physics either :(, man you guys get it easy ;)

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Originally Posted by Happy_Reaper

Until you get to the final and realise your TI-89 can't do your problems for you anymore.

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Don't they still make you show your work in class?

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Don't they still make you show your work in class?

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Well in the classes where my graphing calc was any use to me, the assignment were all worth between 0 and 5 % on your final grade. So it didn't really matter whether you showed your work or not, since it wasn't what decided your grade. The exams did that, and in those you weren't allowed your calculator.

All in all, in retrospect, it's like the calculator was a trap set out to me from the beginning... (Although I use it quite a bit now. It's a pretty handy tool, but it doesn't make you smart.)

Yes but in my exams for example you still got at least 1 mark for the question if you had the answer (usually out of 2 or 4), also for some things they want you to do by hand, such as simply finding intercepts.

I must be missing something here, but the trap where the calculator does the work for you and not bothering to learn anything beyond that is a completely voluntary one, and I guess most teachers will rationalize that if you can input a problem into the calculator, you must know something about the formula. That should help people cram.

[perspective...]

Not particularly for anyone: I guess it makes a difference whether you're in university or not. A new student will meet professors that he or she doesn't really click with and will not get a lot out of class, obviously. The quality of one's post-secondary schooling still relies on how hard you are willing to work, and it would be the proper time to put forth a personal best effort to learn, though. HTH.

I think it's silly that they let you have the calculator all year and then take it away from you in the final exam... makes no sense.

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Originally Posted by zacs7

I think it's silly that they let you have the calculator all year and then take it away from you in the final exam... makes no sense.

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I don't mean to insult anyone's intelligence but that's simply one of the oldest tricks in the history of the world. I never thought I would be the one defending the education system, but it's never the calculator's fault a student fails.

I know that, but they teach you to rely on your calculator and then they take it away :o

Talking about calculators I remember that when i take calculus during grade 12, the midterm we cannot use a calculator, I got 100%. In the final we are allowed to use the calculator and its multiple choice, I got an 80%.

Chances are, if your class initially bans using calculator and then uses it at the end, prepare for a good whipping. For us, the final consists of 30 application differential/integral equations all under 1.5 hour, so even with a calculator, you would still need to know your stuff.

The one thing I hated about math is that unlike programming you can't just pick up a "how to" book on it that explains it in way that is structured to encourage self learning. The pre-calc, calc, trig, algebra books i've been exposed to are horrible for self-learning.

I like http://www.sosmath.com/ though