Go here: ACT’s Rules for Calculator Usage
Read and tell me if you think that prohibits PROGRAMS on the calculator. It is an acceptable calculator (TI-83+) to USE, but I can’t find anything about programs. Also, if anyone has the OFFICIAL word on this, I’d appreciate it.
Also, any test-strategies (other than what teachers tell you billions of times) would be helpful. ACT Experiences, anything really. Just wondering about the calculator thing.
If by “programs”, you mean typing examples and stuff into the programs section of your calculator, then its probably not acceptable. Everybody at my high school did it, but we didn’t get caught. But if you’re asking if calculators that have a section for programs are acceptable, I used the TI82 to take my ACT. It’s on the list of approved calculators, and it can be programmed.
I used my TI-83plus to take the ACT. I don’t think you can “program” in examples of how to do a problem. However, my calculator has all kinds of conversion programs and plug-and-chug programs. It wasn’t a problem for me, and nobody asks to check your calculator. (At least, no one in my experience has, YMMV)
Furthermore, you probably won’t need a calculator anyway. The tests are designed to take w/o one, and I found a lot of the problems on the ACT (as well as the SAT) aren’t even the kind you can solve on a calculator.
Oh yes you can! It’s a wonderful thing to know, if you don’t know how already, and if you’re interested. You type in (programs, create, create new). In that section, you can type in whatever you want using the letter keys. When you’re done, you go to “quit” and this exits the program. Saved my ass many, many times. Just don’t get caught.
Xanadu - corrupting young minds since 1982.
Well, back when I was a kid they didn’t allow these newfangled calculators into the test rooms. We got scratch paper and WE LIKED IT!
Seriously, my browser is acting up and I can’t get the page to open and state my opinion.
Test taking strategies? Relax. It’s just a test and you can always take it again if you feel that you need to.
I know that you physically can, I do it all the time for Chem and Calc. However, I don’t think you “can” for the AP Test. IOW, I think it’s against the rules to program in example equations.
Obviously, the trick to this is not if you can or not but if you can do it w/o getting caught. At the place I’ve been taking my ACTs, they do a brief look over to make sure you don’t have the super big calculators w/ huge displays and stuff but that’s about it. AP test might be a little tougher since they let you use your calculator for only one section and then its gone the rest of the test (or so I hear, we’ll see in three weeks).
From my short experience, the best method to take these tests is to read the sentences before and after for the grammar checking portion of the ACT. While they give you a lot of acceptable substitutes as answers, reading the sentences around the error help in making sure you have correct tense and pronoun agreement and various other crap. They try to trick you a lot.
Like the others have said, it’s mostly an 11[sup]th[/sup] Commandment issue–“Thou shalt not get caught.” I once programmed all the dates and modes into my watch for a Music History exam (of course, after laboriously entering them all, I remembered them easily). You really don’t need anything programmed in for the ACT, though–as long as you remember a few useful formulas (areas, volumes, quadratic equation, things like that) you can do it easily enough with just scratch paper. I should know–I did it that way.
As for test-taking tips…well, you probably shouldn’t do what worked for me. The last time I took it, the occasion when I pulled my top score (35), I hadn’t slept in over 36 hours, was still drunk, and had an elderly Mormon lady trying to convert me during the breaks. I’m funny that way.
The best real advice I can offer is “Relax.” Once you get there, there’s no reason to stress anymore–you’ve already done all you can to prepare. Go through each section as you come to it, do the easy stuff first, go back for the trickier ones, then guess on the ones you just plain don’t know how to deal with. Review your answers if time permits, but don’t change any unless you actually see where you made a mistake. Once you finish a section, don’t look back. It’s over, and second-guessing yourself will only interfere with the next section. Try to have fun with it–make a game out of filling in the little bubbles, doodle on your scratch paper after you finish reviewing your answers (that drives people nuts), imagine the proctor naked (or maybe not :eek: ). If you blow it, don’t worry–you can generally take it again; I took it three times.
You’ll do fine.
Far as strategies go, yup, relax. And unless they’ve changed the test dramatically since I took it, I’m convinced studying for it does not a whit of good–knew people who did poorly, or not as well as they’d have liked, studied-studied-studied…and did almost exactly the same on retaking.
I don’t recall any math bits that made me wish for a calculator, scratch paper did just fine.
Well, it’s a bit late for this advice, but practice helps alot. Where I grew up we started on standardized tests (the Iowa Basic Skills test) in 4th grade. By the time I got to the ACT (or was it SAT? it’s been over 20 years!) I just treated it like another fill-in-the-dots test.
In fact, be careful not to use the calculator when you don’t have too. When I have a calculator I often find myself trying to find a way to use it on every question, when sometimes there is an easier way to do a problem by hand. Reach for the calculator before you reach for the calculator, not before.
Well, we found the answer for Garf last night, we think; in the “Test Day” section of the ACT FAQ, a passage states:
We reckon that the “notes or other aids” would include electronic crib sheets such as those you’d program in to your calculator.
To be perfectly blunt here…on aptitude tests like the ACT they are for intellectual lightweights, people who slept through algebra, geometry and trig., and those who still carry around security blankets. Quite simply, they are NOT needed to get an outstanding score on the test.
To use myself as an example, I actually forgot what the test date was when I took it in 1991 as a junior in high school. I stayed out late partying the Friday before (the test was on a Saturday), got maybe three hours of sleep, and started helping with my family’s garage sale (we were moving in a couple of months). Suddenly, about half an hour before the test was to begin, a friend of mine called to say that he was leaving for the test and wished me luck. Aack! After making a frantic plea for my mom’s car keys and a getting sound verbal thrashing from her as well, I raced to the school with five minutes to spare. No calculator, much less a good night’s sleep or even breakfast! I used about a page and a half of scratch paper, mostly for checking my answers, and scored a composite of 31…well within the top 1%.