<p>At the beginning of the school year I bought a TI-89 Titanium because it was the most powerful calculator that you could use on the AP Calc exam. But, almost all of our tests have been non-calculator so I never really learned how to use it. Now with the AP exam quickly approaching our teacher is showing us how to solve problems and stuff with the calculator so we can use it on the exam. But the problem is that everyone else has a TI-83 and the teacher doesn't know how to work a TI-89. I've gotten some stuff down but a lot of stuff I feel lost on. Is there a website that can teach me how to use my TI-89 properly for the AP Calc AB exam?</p>
<p>What do I absolutely need to know for sure how to do on my calculator? Like, I know I need to get doing definite integrals down pat on on the calculator, but what else?</p>
<p>I've got a TI-89 and took the AB exam last year -- the calculator section of the free response does emphasize knowing how to use your calculator to evaluate integrals & derivatives; the summation feature may also be handy. (But keep in mind, only half of the free response allows you to use your calculator..)</p>
<p>Other than that, I really can't think of anything specific; the test is really looking at whether you know the material or not (and if your tests were mostly non-calculator, that actually helped me out a lot for learning theory and stuff).</p>
<p>If you have specific questions on how to do stuff, you can always look it up in the user's manual, but I don't know of any websites that talk about this in particular. </p>
<p>know how to derive and integrate on ur calculator
also make sure u know how to graph, hence it being a "graphing calculator"
im surprised ur teacher hasnt been doing calculator problems all year. weird...</p>
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im surprised ur teacher hasnt been doing calculator problems all year. weird...
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<p>Um....probably because some teachers will simply never let you use a graphing calculator unless it's absolutely necessary. They want to actually teach you math the right way, rather than teaching you how to rely on a calculator for everything.</p>
<p>Actually, there should be some sense of graphing within the calculus class. I like the way my teacher taught us, where we learned to do it without a calculator first, took the test, and then taught us how to do it on the calculator afterwards. Therefore, I do know how to do everything without the calculator, but when I get into more complex equations, the calculator is a great tool for completing the problem accurately. </p>
<p>By the way, sometimes the calculator is necessary, like when you get into length of a curves with integrals and radicals, making it somewhat impossible to take the antiderivative of the equation, unless you use the calculator...so let's not zap the use of a calculator just yet.</p>
<p>"Actually, there should be some sense of graphing within the calculus class. I like the way my teacher taught us, where we learned to do it without a calculator first, took the test, and then taught us how to do it on the calculator afterwards. Therefore, I do know how to do everything without the calculator, but when I get into more complex equations, the calculator is a great tool for completing the problem accurately."</p>
<p>Yea, our teacher is going back and teaching us how to use the calculators for the AP test. I don't think it's a bad method because it really doesn't take that long to figure out how to do stuff on the calculator - as I've just found out. :P</p>
<p>My calc teacher (Siemens award 2002) checked out TI-89's to us at the beginning of the year, and expects us to use them often. Her tests are modeled directly after real AP exams, except for our 1 hour class time. 4MC Calculator questions, then Calculator FR. Then 7MC noncalc questions, then noncalc FR. It really helps to get a small sense of what the real thing will be like.</p>
<p>Basically, she says calculators are very useful, but don't rely on them, since you won't have it for half the test.
Knowing how to integrate and derive on your calculator is very useful, but those questions probably won't be on a calculator section of your test.</p>
<p>You don't really need the TI-89 for the test anyway. All you'll really need to know how to do is definite integrals and maybe a bit of graphing, the rest you'll be able to do on pencil and paper.</p>
<p>yea, fnint is on the ti-83, so it's probably called something different on ti-89, but its just the definite integrals.</p>
<p>And remember to change your function depending on the mode, like parametric vs. polar. Like instead of x, you'd put in theta or T. Just reminding =)</p>
<p>I know for integration, derivatations, & sums it's all under the "calculus" header (f2 or f3, I believe.) You can go in the catalog to see what order to enter the data in, though - it should say something like expression, variable, lower, upper (and the lower/upper bounds are optional). One easy thing to do, though, is to enter the function as y1 and select that as your function through varlink (2nd -) when you're calculating something, but make sure you enter it as y1(x) if you do. The TI-89 is also really good at complaining about parenthases, although that's probably a good thing. :)</p>
<p>To clear up the confusion about integration, there are two types of integration functions on the 89. One is called nInt, and it should be basically the equivalent on fnInt on the 83. It uses numerical methods (most likely one of the variations of Euler's method whose name I've forgotten) to find a very close approximation of an integral. The other is called int or integrate or something and it can evaluate indefinite integrals using analytic methods. It can also be used to evaluate definite integrals if you specify endpoints. You only need to know how to use one function for the AP test, although both work pretty much the same way. fnInt may take less time to process in some situations, but integrate can help you check your work by evaluating indefinite integrals.</p>