Calculators or not .... college entrance tests

This article is the 3rd in a series titled "Calculators or not". You might want to take a look at the previous two short articles "Calculators or not" and "Calculators or not .... high school math" . Please feel free to comment at anytime!

You will note that the picture I used with the first article mentions that the TI-nspire calculator is "permitted on SAT ACT and AP testing". This is true and so are several other versions of Texas Instruments calculators, as well as Casios and HPs and a few other brands. However, for the most part, calculators are not even really needed in order to do VERY well on these tests. And you certainly don't need the most high powered graphing calculator you can get your hands on! You do need to know a great deal about Math in order to do well, but the calculator does not tell you WHEN to multiply or WHEN to take the square-root. The calculator will do these things for you, but you have to know WHEN. And that is what the college entrance exams are testing.

The SAT and the ACT are the two main College Entrance exams which students take in order to gain admittance to the college of their choice. Students can use calculators on these tests and they are required to bring their own calculator to the test. Most of them do.

They bring the calculator and there it sits. Rarely will they have to touch it while they take the math sections of the test. BUT .... they LIKE having it there. It is a source of comfort to have it there. Forget your calculator, and suddenly you don't know anything! Have the batteries go dead, and suddenly you are in a sweaty panic! It isn't so much that you NEED it ... it is that you THINK you need it.

For sample questions from the SAT, sign up for the SAT Question of the Day . Every 3rd day there is a sample Math Question. It is actually a very educational thing to do everyday. If you sign up, you'll get a question in your email everyday! Do these questions for a few weeks and see how often YOU have to reach for a calculator. Not often, I'll bet.

In short, calculators are not really needed on the SAT or the ACT, but they are permitted. Students like having them beside them, whether they touch them or not.

But ... there are other types of entrance tests and placement tests which do NOT allow the use of a calculator ... and that will be the subject of my next article ... "Calculators or not ... placement tests"