calculator on gre?

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TheSync
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:02 pm

calculator on gre?

Post by TheSync » Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:21 pm

i realize this is probably a trivial question, but i was curious and my desperate need for an answer with as little effort as possible gave me the motivation to finally register here and post my first native topic.....im guess calculators are not allowed, but i ran into a practice problem that required solving a quadratic eqn which was not trivial, thus leading to my inquiry (exhale)

sirjetpackbob
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 10:21 am

Post by sirjetpackbob » Mon Aug 20, 2007 8:13 am

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but last year they did not allow calculators and I don't think there are any plans to change that this year.

If you're getting practice problems from the "purple" book, they are notoriously harder than the actual GRE problems, so don't use those to gauge the difficulty.

The GRE seems to put a lot of emphasis on being able to quickly estimate a correct answer without going through the detailed calculations.

schmit.paul
Posts: 161
Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:48 pm

Post by schmit.paul » Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:31 pm

order of magnitude is your friend. and no calculators were allowed last year, so I have to imagine the GRE Physics will still aim to evaluate rough mental computational skills this year. it's not as bad as it seems, and if you do all of your hand calculations in scientific notation it makes for quick work.

physics ferret
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2007 2:33 pm

Post by physics ferret » Sat Aug 25, 2007 12:04 pm

get used to rounding like a mofo (pi = 3, etc.).

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grae313
Posts: 2296
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Post by grae313 » Sun Aug 26, 2007 11:59 pm

no calculators, no cellphones, no watches, no mechanical pencils. Bring your ID, your admission tickets, the clothes on your arse, and five number two regular pencils. :D Have fun.



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