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Ask Slashdot: Cheap Second Calculators For Tests?
Rich0 writes "I own an HP 48 calculator that I'm quite content with, but soon I'll need to take a certification exam where this calculator will not be welcome. I'm sure this is a common problem for those who own higher-end calculators. Sure, I could just buy a random $15 calculator with a few trig functions, but I was wondering who makes the best moderately-priced calculators for somebody who already has and appreciates a programmable calculator and just needs something simple. Bonus points if the calculator can handle polar vector arithmetic and unit conversions, but it has to be simple enough that virtually any exam would accept its use."
I believe the TI-36X Pro would probably do what you are looking for. It is approved for use on Professional Engineer tests, from what I have read.
I have a TI-36X Pro for basically the same reasons you outlined. It's quite affordable too, and if you're in the US (I'm not) then it is really easy to find.
Check out the NCEES Calculator Policy.
I had a non-programmable calculator in college but it died and I didn't need a calculator at work. I bought a TI-30Xa for when I took the state professional engineering exam. I am still using this calculator as an engineering professor. Plenty of capability.
I would suggest the HP-11C. It's available on ebay, and is not $15 cheap, but it is an RPN programmable scientific, of less complexity than the HP-48. I am an RPN fan, so I would go the extra mile to get an RPN calculator.
step 1: buy a retarded large button lcd calculator with w huge screen and fixed digits (you know, 0-9, ., +, *, /, -)
step 2: replace the buttons with joysticks
step 3: replace the screen with something around 300dpi
step 4: put in an arm processor and bring up linux
step 5: add wireless networking
step 6: swap out the aa batteries with lithium
step 7: develop a chorded keyboard input on the now 9 position keys
step 8: write an emulator to pretend to be the original calculator
step 9: profit
I have a Casio FX991ES, it has a nice display, can do unit conversion, polar arithmetic and is cheap.
It's pretty common in Australia. It has a different model number in every country.
I like calculators and picked one of these up for a spare. For a non-graphing, non-programmable, scientific calculator, it is pretty good. Input and output display are independent so you can use natural input and have decimal output. It is easy to use overall. Mine has no persistent state so if it times out and turns off it comes back cleared. These are neat calculators and very inexpensive.
Clickety Click
There is a jerk just like you at my job. I'll ask coworkers for their opinion on a particular tool, and he has to but in and say, "You can just Google for the tool and find hundreds of them for sale." I don't ask my coworkers because I need a list of names, I ask them because I want their opinion, and usually specific to the type of work we do. Part of "growth" is just not knowing what is the most popular choice, but knowing the criteria people use when selecting a tool. And just like that jerk coworker, guys like you will complain how such requests for opinion and discussion waste your time by making you do other people's work for them, yet you have no problem spending way more time whining about wasting time than you would with actually moving on and doing whatever makes your time so important.
You want people to speak up, and not sugar coat things for the purpose of "inoffensiveness"? Well, the did, by down modding such garbage. You want to value honest expression over phony appearance, yet bitch when it turns out people disagree with you.
Thanks. I can obviously read Amazon reviews and such. However, I felt that the /. community probably had tastes more similar to my own, vs a bunch of kids taking algebra in high school/etc.
I took two bottom of the line TI-30s ($9.99) and my slide rule (in 1997 or 1998). There's nothing on the FE or PE exam that needs anything other than basic calculations: trig functions, etc. You could quite easily do it with a decent slide rule: it's not like you need 8 digits of accuracy. Either you know which equation to use, and you know what steps are in the solution, or you don't. The "wrong" answers are all the typical screwups (b/a instead of a/b kind of stuff).
However.. since you're used to an HP with RPN.. I'd strongly suggest finding another HP to use. Taking the test is enough of a mental challenge you don't want to be dorking around with your calculator trying to remember how to x^y instead of y^x
Indeed. And what comes out is "engineers" that make calculations that are wrong by an order of magnitude or two and do not notice. That is the reason why you also have to be able to do it by hand or with a simple calculator. If I were in charge of teaching engineering computing, proficiency with a slide-rule would be mandatory. People who can do that do not make large mistakes. (Unfortunately, nobody seems to make slide-rules anymore. But I inherited one, practiced a bit with it and was very impressed.)
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yes they can, but is that a problem?
When I was in school, my math classes required the use of a graphing calculator (it was a private school, so they required students get either a TI-81 or TI-85). I discovered the TI Basic features and thought that I could ensure myself high test scores by simply writing programs that could solve all the types of problems that would be on the test--this wasn't illegal, provided we wrote our own programs. The first few times I did this, I fully intended to use them during the test, but I found that it was usually just quicker to solve the problem myself, though I'd occasionally check my answer using my program. It was basically impossible for me to instruct the calculator on how to solve the problem without fully learning how to do it myself. And it became clear to me that simply writing a program was the best method for me to study for tests. Prior to that, I would cram before the test and sometimes it would be sufficient and sometimes it wouldn't. But in writing the program, I could very easily tell when I was done studying and it took far less time than the traditional method. And, unlike cramming, programming was fun!
From the interest that I gained in programming TI Basic, I decided to take an intro to CS class the summer before my freshman year of college. That led to my majoring in CS and the fulfilling, enjoyable and well-paid profession that I've had for the past ~15 years.
I'm very grateful that my math teachers in high school didn't see things they way that you do.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
I use a Casio FX-260 Solar for these sorts of things. It has all your basic scientific functions, plus a nice statistics package. It doesn't have complex numbers or base conversions though. Still, for $10.00, it's not half bad!
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
Yeah, but I don't think I'm allowed to bring my brother to the exam?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I have 2 Casio FX-115ESPlus calcs, and I use them all the time. One at my desk, one in my toolbox. I think I paid $12.99 for them, and they are available everywhere.
I like RPN, but the Casio textbook entry input works very well, and comes in handy when I have more important things on my mind.
www.casio.com/products/Calculators_%26_Dictionaries/Fraction_%26_Scientific/FX-115ESPLUS/
They also rank very highly for accuracy.
http://www.rskey.org/~mwsebastian/miscprj/forensics.htm
voidware.com/calcs/torturetest.htm
I got my BS in engineering in 1970 and except for shared Wang calculators for statistics and probability courses everything was slide rule. In 1973 I audited a graduate course at a different institution and the only two people in the class with slide rules were me and the professor. When the parameters in are only good to one or two significant figures, which is most often the case, a slide rule is more than accurate enough and since you have to keep track of the exponents you do get a much better feel for what is "right" and what is not. I still have my old K&E in its orange leather case and have actually bough a few others at yard sales and such over the years.
There are several slide rule apps available on Apple App Store - probably some Android apps out there too. Just saying they exist.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
The problem is that if highly-programmable calculators are permitted, test-prep companies like Kaplan will develop programs ostensibly for practice that would be based on reverse-engineered tests, change the test from measuring who is capable of handling this kind of engineering to who's capable of buying the "study materials" from Kaplan.
I can tell you, in the real world, I do not necessarily have access to documentation to do my technical job, I have to interpret what I see in front of me based on what I know and what I know how to do, not based on what I plug in to a device for an answer. I need to own the knowledge and the skills, not be in a position to constantly look them up for reference.
Once I've demonstrated an ability to know what skills need to be applied to a given situation, then it's not unreasonable to allow me to use tools, because I've already demonstrated that I understand what I am doing. That's why we have calculators in education in the first place, we stop doing multiplication, division, and trig after we've proven that we know how to do those.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
If a math test can be easily defeated by a mere calculator, I don't think it's a test that tests for anything important, anyway. Math is not just a rote memorization exercise, but sadly, many (including schools and colleges) treat it that way. It's sad, but I think most tests are so poorly made.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
You've gotta be kidding me. Drilling high schoolers on fundamentals is "conditioning for subservience"? No, you drill them so that they remember it.
No one, no matter how smart, can learn without practice. You need repetition to convince your brain that the information is worth storing.
Now, maybe you're a special snowflake who studied extra hard and learned the material on his own. But not every student is going to do that, and the teacher has no way of knowing who has really learned the material and who is just faking it to avoid being bothered.
Heck, you might not even really know if you've learned it. You might think you know it, but then you come upon a tricky question and realize there's a gap in your knowledge. It's better to have that happen in a class dedicated to the material, than it is to stumble upon that gap years later when you realize you're the only one in your graduate level engineering course who never really grasped taylor series expansions.
I was one of those who self-studied in secondary school. Caused chaos at the maths and science exams. The problem is that the exam mark scheme doesn't just expect the right answer: If you get the answer wrong, it also gives marks for reaching various 'milestones' and completing vital steps in the process of working it out. This part of the scheme depends upon the student carrying out the calculations using the approved curriculum method. If the student uses an alternate method, their answers become all-or-nothing: Get the answer wrong and get no marks at all.
Given that you like your 48, you might want to look at the details of the allowed calculator lists for the specific tests you have in mind and see which other HP RPN calculators would fit the bill.
The 35s is allowed on a number of tests where fancier calculators aren't, including the NCEES. Not the cheapest, but capable. Its support for polar complex numbers covers what you seem to be asking for.
It's the successor to the 33s, which had an odd keyboard but was otherwise ok, which in turn was the successor to the 32S/32SII. Those are still quite capable calculators if you find one around. Enough people considered the 42S to be the best calculator ever made that it goes for absurd prices on ebay.
I suppose that's the difference between now and ~20 years ago. Back then, the TI-81 had no way to load a program apart from typing it in manually. The TI-85 had a data cable, but that only allowed a program/data to be transferred between two TI-85s. If the calculator had simpler ways to load programs, there would have been huge potential for abuse. But we had to write the programs ourselves.
And it really isn't possible to write a program to perform a task without truly understanding it. It's a lesson that I learned during the course of my CS education. Whenever I've struggled to write code, it means that I haven't asked enough questions and I don't understand what I'm writing to the necessary level of detail. The challenge of writing code for a living isn't the writing part...writing code is easy. The challenge, when working on something really difficult, is asking yourself and others the right questions to solidify your understanding of what needs to be coded.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
And for unit conversions, if you want precise answers you memorize all conceivable conversion factors to fifteen digits?
Ten places ought to be enough to get you from meters to atoms. Any test that needs more precision than that will surely allow a crib sheet.
Back in the day, people could easily remember ten digit phone numbers.
The converse is that you'll still end up with the popular tools if you ask people what their preferred tools are and why...
OK, so I'll offer something different.
During my first year at uni, I used to own an HP-48G+ which I loved for its nice keypad and the RPN interface, but the actual device was hopelessly unreliable and had an unwelcome tendency to let me down by throwing hissy-fits during assessments. I eventually got around that particular limitation by replacing it with a TI-89, which (although lacking keypad quality and RPN) was, and still is, a vastly superior device on many levels.
But since this doesn't answer the OP's question, here's my take on it in the light of years of experience since my university studies...
The best calculator for examinations is: NONE AT ALL.
You will get much more kudos for arriving at any kind of solution (however incomplete) if you can show how you started from first principles. Also, you might actually remember how to use these skills years later if you do this.
I would like to be able to say this is what I did, but it would be a lie. I was not a brilliant maths student, since I relied too much on gadgets to help me through assessments. However, I have since revisited the subject and learned how to do it with more insight, and now find a certain pride in being able to "do" maths with no more hardware than a sheet of paper, a pencil and my brain.
Oh, and FWIW, although I still have my TI-89, most of the routine mechanical calculations I perform these days are done on the RealCalc Plus app on my phone.
Actually, back in the day, the 7-digit phone number was seen as an upper limit to the maximum length it was reasonable to memorize without much practice, and early implementations often used only 5 digits to further easy the burden. 10-digit-dialing didn't come about until almost the new century; in many places in the US it was impossible to dial a "local" number with 10 digits until the late 90s -- if you tried it would ask you to hang up and dial again without the area code or long-distance access prefix.
Pros: No batteries, no TEMPEST emissions, no NSA snooping...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Thanks. I can obviously read Amazon reviews and such. However, I felt that the /. community probably had tastes more similar to my own, vs a bunch of kids taking algebra in high school/etc.
See, that's where you went horribly wrong. For one thing there are members on here that still swear by slide rules (I am on the fence on that one). Some will point you at calculators that would still be verboten, and then there's guys like me that have enough math to just use something like this because square roots are hard to get right in your head. You should be able to do trig without the SIN, COS and TAN buttons. Remember the Unit Circle? If you came a to geek website to ask for help with trig and conversions from a calculator and didn't expect a good amount of heckling then you should have stuck with Google.
And Timmy strikes again by not posting an Ask Slashdot story to the Ask Slashdot section. Hey Timmy! They put those sections there and allow readers to filter by section for a reason. Quit being a fucking tool and post the stories properly. In other words, do your job.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables