“I would dispute that.”
Which part?
The part regarding examinations. Like I said - we were taught and trained how to do with just pencil and a pad, and we did our labs that way.
First lab we had - we had to do statistical analysis, and we had an extremely long list of calculations to do in class. About 3x as many as were possible to do in the time given. They had to be precisely right.
My professor said at the end of the class that you had to get so many questions done and if you didn’t get enough, you were advised not to pursue the program!
No calculators or anything. My math classes were the same.
I can speak for other places - but that’s what we did.