AP Chemistry No Calculator

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>So....I'm taking AP Chemistry and my teacher does not let us use calculators on anything (stoichiometry is up next, too, and we all know how fun that is!). Anyone else have a no calculator policy in their AP chemistry class?</p>

2

<p>You don’t get a calculator on the AP test multiple choice. And you do have to do calculations in that section. As long as your teacher’s tests don’t require some ridiculous division or multiplication (or worse, square roots), I don’t see a problem with that policy.</p>

<p>I mean, it would be even better if your teacher just let you leave numbers un-calculated. As in, reporting x to be 28.4 * 19 / 1.07.</p>

3

<p>If your teacher doesn’t let you use calculators, most likely the calculations would be simple. last year my ap chem teacher let us use calculators though. </p>

<p>On the AP test (multiple choice part) you can’t use a calculator; none of the questions need it. </p>

<p>As long as your teacher uses simple-ish numbers and calculations, it shouldn’t be to bad. However, there are problems in chemistry that can involve more annoying calculations, like equilibrium problems that require the quadratic formula.</p>

4

<p>Well, we do problems out of our textbook (Zumdahl) for homework, and those problems were designed to be done with a calculator (not simple numbers at all). I was just curious if anyone was in the same boat as me.</p>

5

<p>Use logarithms :D</p>

6

<p>I took AP chem last year (we used Zumdahl as well). My teacher had a no calculator policy as well.</p>

7

<p>My teacher doesn’t even tell us when we can and can’t use a calculator…</p>

8

<p>With no calculator, that probably means that results will come out to “nice” numbers, so if you get something really off the wall, sometimes that can be a clue that you made a mistake. No calculator tests sometimes do have advantages!</p>

<p>If it’s something where you’re allowed to leave the result uncalculated, it is still good to do a sanity check. Make an estimate by rounding your values to check that your answer comes out to something in a logical/reasonable range.</p>