Re: PSAT and SAT math section
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Re: PSAT and SAT math section
On Sat, 11 Oct 1997, Felonius wrote:
) >Well, the thing is, I believe you can (correct me f I am wrong) use your
) >calculator on the PSAT's/SAT's without deleting the memory. They call it
) >preparation for the test. I guess they figure if you can put it there, you
) >muxt know how to do it (not alltogether true, but... eh, I'm not
) >complaining, I take my PSAT's Saturday =)...)
) Well, just so y'all know the PSAT's and SAT's are designed in such a way
) that you will get little or no help from using a graphing calculator.
) A calculator will help, but only marginally. most of the math is simple w/
) whole numbers. There is nothing that requires a accurate graph. In my
) opinion, it's not necessary to bring a powerful calc, just one that you can
) use quickly. The whole reason is to save time, so if it takes longer on
) your calc, don't bother.
Well, when I took an old SAT I to practice for the PSAT, one of the
questions in one of the math sections asked something about "which of
these equations has one integer root?" and gave something like 2x+1=0,
3x^2-2=0, and 4x^3-3=0 (I'm not sure of the coefficients). Instead of
using the quadratic for the second one, and thinking over/plugging in
random values for the third, I simply used the POLY function on my TI-85
and had the correct answer in maybe 10 seconds...
--
Daniel Reed <n@narnia.n.ml.org>
System administrator of narnia.n.ml.org (narnia.mhv.net [199.0.0.118])
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma...
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