Posted on 06/08/2005 11:34:09 AM PDT by JZelle
RICHMOND -- Texas Instruments is replacing 160,000 school calculators in Virginia after an observant sixth-grader discovered a function that would have given students an unfair advantage on standardized tests. The state's education department asked Texas Instruments two years ago to disable the function that converts decimals to fractions because students are required to know how to do that with paper and pencil on statewide tests. But in January, Dakota Brown, 12, a student at Carver Middle School in Chesterfield County, figured out that by pressing two other keys on his approved TI-30 Xa SE VA, he could change decimals into fractions anyway.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
"Yes, and it amazes me how they can't figure out simple calculations without the stupid calculator."
No wonder they look so stressed when I hand them a little change to round back to the nearest dollar, at the store.
Oh boy. Here come the wedgies.
Both are a miscarriage of justice, as far as I'm concerned. Also, I'm inclined to agree that a cop in pursuit of a dangerous criminal may be justified in seizing/commandeering a car and that may indeed constitute a "reasonable seizure." I'm too lazy to look up any case law at the moment.
Are you crazy? They'll poke their eye out!
(kidding)
btw, wanna buy a Post Versatrig?
Black case with belt loop included :-)
And in much better shape that the one in the pic.
btw2 - someone's going to ask, "What's a slide rule".
The use of numbers on a test which are too large to factor by hand, eg.
.723893456 (keyed at random) = 723,893,456/1,000,000,000 = ?/?
is pointless when smaller numbers illustrate the point satisfactorily:
0.375 = 375/1000 = (5*5*5)*3/(5*5*5)*2*2*2 = 3/8
.09(09) = 9/99 = 1/11
An argument can be made that since errors can occur in the factoring process, such a question without a calculator would not isolate on the fraction simplification process. But if you don't have a multiplication table and a few other factoring rules down from preceding grades, you won't find that problem with this test.
I should have emphasises the past tense, but when I was a kid, we always hated kids who would rat out to the teacher stuff that we could get away with that they didn't know.
It was like the first "rule of the play ground".
1)Thou shall whoop rats.
The rest of the "rules of the playground" degenerate from there.
I'm waiting for that question on this thread as well :-P
I still remember the groundschool class on the flight computer. There were only two of us over 35 and we both understood exactly how it worked (the other old-timer was an engineer preparing for retirement) but them thar whippersnappers were totally bewildered over the notion that a device that doesn't use electricity could calculate wind drift, fuel load and ETA. I made the mistake of telling them that it was just a slide rule with a circular design and "What's a slide rule" was their response, using those exact words.
If he's so smart, why is he using a calculator?
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