You don’t want to lose exam minutes getting in gear with a “more basic” calculator than you are used to.Ī number of years ago, when I was teaching in the classroom, I regularly introduced a relevant application of a Math concept I was covering. I noticed immediately that, even though the strategy was exactly the same as the large-screen version, there was a definite visual recognition learning curve that was slowing me down. Waiting at the dentist’s office, and trying to distract myself from contemplating an impending root canal, I opened FreeCell on my phone and began to play. And I recently downloaded a phone app of this. Here is how I became aware of this issue:įor the last few years I have used “FreeCell” games (a form of solitaire) on the computer to decompress after a hard day’s work. The switch-over does take some mental and muscle response re-programming. This is especially important if you are used to using a scientific calculator or a graphing calculator. There are a few apps available that you can use during your prep for the exam. ![]() Practice Using a Simulation of the GRE Calculator Before the Actual Exam In these cases they are testing your ability to use quantitative concepts to solve the problem. The online calculator provided on the exam can only support 8 digits! This prevents you from brute-forcing some of the questions. About 9 seconds! There is also a risk of miss-entering a value, which can be greater than if you had used visual math. Now imagine turning your attention to bringing up the online calculator, typing in “25-16” and hitting Enter, closing the calculator, and finally turning your attention back to your scratch paper. (Example questions in a future post.) If you can subtract 25-16 using air math, it probably wouldn’t take more than 5 seconds, and use very little brain power. Not only does it save time and energy, but it also enables you to focus your attention on the reasoning aspects of a question. The more basic computations you can make automatic, the easier it becomes to use in a problem. How much problem-solving information can you hold in your head at a time? This varies from person to person, but it’s not infinite. Quick….how many minutes is that? Yes, almost 7! Enough time to get a few more questions correct.īesides saving time, there are additional benefits to using what is called “mental math” but I refer to as “air math” or “visual math” instead-reducing cognitive load and “attention switching.” If you can easily slice off 10 seconds from each question on average, that’s a total of 400 seconds saved. There are 40 quantitative questions that are scored for the GRE. Interestingly, the older students, those preparing for the GRE, tend to be more open to this easy fix. And she pushed back on the idea of memorizing the basic math facts. Alas, she did not receive this well, so I asked her what is 8 + 5. I suggested a quick and easy way to reach her goal: noticing that she was using her calculator for virtually every computation, I suggested that cutting back on her use of her calculator would save time and energy, enough by itself to boost her score. A bright student doing well in her calculus class, she already had earned a score of about 32 on the ACT, and wanted to boost that up a few points (out of 36 possible). ![]() I was working with a high school senior who was prepping for the ACT. Even though there are cases where the online calculator will help you, it’s best to minimize its use.Īs I am wont to offer boring stories, I can’t help but share the following:
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