> I showed up to my AP calculus test without a calculator
In my Calculus class we weren't even allowed to use a calculator on the test. Actually, almost all my math classes through college wouldn't let us use calculators during tests.
In my Calculus class we weren't even allowed to use a calculator on the test. Actually, almost all my math classes through college wouldn't let us use calculators during tests.
AP Exams/Courses are offered in many subject areas and each have very strict guidelines (like which calculators to allow), which are dictated to the instructor by the College Board.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP_Calculus#Exam [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Board
The test is designed so that you still need to have a fairly high-level understanding of calculus and how the functions work. They aren't testing your ability to crunch out 56/7, but your ability to understand that the rate of flow of a liquid out of an irregular trough changes as the fluid level drops, and that you can model each portion of the equation correctly. A calculator isn't going to help you know that you need to account for a changing volume, and that the volume is directly correlated to the outflow.
It'll help you get the right formula for the area of a circle or volume of a cylinder, but not the higher-level reasoning that is really important.
In my opinion, that's silly, as none of the 3 semesters of college calculus I took allowed the use of a calculator, but that's the test that was mentioned.
(I actually did the same thing on mine, but fortunately extra calculators were provided, possibly because of their past experiences with students pulling this kind of stunt).