Calculators on AP tests

<p>So I took AP Stats this year and installed a bunch of programs onto my TI 84 to help me on the test. Apparently, the proctors don't check your calculators before or after tests. I'm not sure if this was just for my school or if it's the same for everyone else. I plan on taking bc calc, chem, and physics for tests that require calculators next year and if collegeboard doesn't care about what's on my calculator, I am going to stuff my calculator with helpful programs again. But if they do and through some misfortune, they invalidate my scores, I would be in a bind. So, if anyone knows what the exact calculator policy is for AP tests, could you please let me know. Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>You can do whatever you want with it, but once you start filling mem, the programs run slower and (my calculator, at least) sometimes lock up.</p>

<p>I don’t think they check your calculators at all. But, for Calc half the test you can use your calculators and during that part, the questions usually involve using difficult equations to find zeroes and point of intersection. It won’t help too much with a TI-89 for finding derivatives or an equation. The CollegeBoard is pretty good with making the calculator questions difficult to solve with programs. And for chem, you can only use your calculator for the first part of the FRQ. MC is without a calculator and I think the second half of the FRQ as well. I haven’t taken physics though.</p>

<p>They don’t check your calculators at all; with so many people, it would take up valuable testing time, especially for the people who had a test in the afternoon.</p>

<p>You can check the calculator policy for each test [url=&lt;a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”&gt;What to Bring on AP Exam Day – AP Students | College Board]here[/url</a>]. You will find that none of the tests require you to clear the calculator’s memory, so you should be fine. (When I took the AP Physics B exam, they didn’t check my calculator’s memory, if that helps.)</p>

<p>Calculus
-MC Part A: no calculator
-MC Part B: calculator allowed.
-FRQ Part A (two questions now): calculator allowed
-FRQ Part B (four questions now): no calculator</p>

<p>Chemistry
-MC: no calculator
-FRQ Part A (three questions): calculator allowed
-FRQ Part B (three questions) no calculator; you can go back to part A but still no calculator.</p>

<p>Physics
-MC: No Calculator
-FRQ: Calculator allowed</p>

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<p>Do note that you can return to Part A (without a calculator) during part B.</p>

<p>Basically, you can take in any allowed calculator to any test that allows calculators with whatever programs stored on it. Hell, if you got the answers from a friend taking the exam, you could put the answers in your calculator (not recommended).</p>

<p>^Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Thanks for the information added.</p>

<p>Ok, thank you so much. So I guess it would be pretty helpful to install programs as long as they don’t take up my memory. I’m surprised though. I had the impression that college board was really paranoid about questions being leaked out of the test but since they have such a lenient policy, it’s possible to copy down the questions onto a calculator and take it outside after testing…</p>

<p>^
Well, for AP tests like Chemistry, there’s really no point since Collegeboard releases the FRQs anyway.</p>

<p>Personally, I put my notes into my notefolio. It was pretty useful to check my answers since I had LOTS of downtime after I finished the calculator portion.</p>