[A83] Re: Symbolic...


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[A83] Re: Symbolic...




> he gave it to an inspection guy too. And now it's 
forbidden...

This is quite interesting. I just had a talk with my former 
IB maths teacher, and he said that although calculators 
with CAS are not allowed on IB exams, if there is a program 
written to an originally non-CAS calc (if I recall 
correctly exactly the TI-83+ is the most advanced one 
allowed) that performs symbolic operations, it cannot be 
forbidden either. The only kind of programs that is 
forbidden is dummy programs which serve as little 
electronic formula booklets. Of course this is IB. But I 
don't see any sense in forbiding programs, mostly because 
programmers who are smart enough to make them are also 
smart enough to hide them well... Then why are programmable 
calculators allowed at all anyway? For example, we are not 
allowed to use anything for the linear algebra exams, not 
even a simple calc that performs only elementary 
operations. As regards calculus, we could, but no solution 
is accepted without explanation/proper derivation (and 
Symbolic wouldn't help with triple integrals either). 
Probably teachers should wake up and realise that the 
calculators have gone through serious changes and construct 
new exercises that fit the new technology better... This is 
just a great opportunity to confront them with their 
laziness. :)

PG





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