<p>My school requires the purchase of TI-89's. While merudh's school may give them away, many people in poorer districts (or homeschoolers for that matter) may not have access (financial or otherwise) for a TI-89.</p>
<p>I just picked up an 89 because all you guys said it saved time/helped and I'll return it after Saturday. Anyway, I'm quite ****ty with technology. If anyone is willing to help me understand how to use this solve command you're all talking about it'd be much appreciated.</p>
<p>Also, their are a ton of aplications I can get for geo, polynomial root finder, and simultaneous equation solver. Are any of these helpful?</p>
<p>I'm so lost. Any help is greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>"you do have the manual that came with it when you bought it. that's a start.</p>
<p>and the most useful application in it for standardized tests is:
press the "home" button
go to "F2"</p>
<p>and your world has just been made so much easier. and if you try to solve something you have to put a comma and indicated what variable you want to solve for. so if you go to "f2" and click "solve(" then on the home screen it comes up to "solve(" and you insert a phrase say..."solve(3x+4=0" you then have to put a comma and what variable so it looks like "solve(3x+4=0,x)" and CLOSE THE PARENTHESES that and alwaysalways use the equal sign or else it won't recognize that you want to solve it.</p>
<p>it also has factor/expand functions as well. and loads of other **** but for now that's only the basics and it has a lot of calc/higher math abilities that i don't know how to use yet. but my math teacher is helping me out with it along the way.</p>
<p>good luck with the calc. it's beautiful (when i got mine it was either that or a new laptop battery...i guess we know which one won )"</p>
<p>Found this in a search. Hope it'll be useful, Yojo.</p>
<p>Thanks! I'm only using it for the SAT however. Are there any other features you think would be helpful? Can it do systems of equations?</p>
<p>It can do cot, csc and sec functions dirrectly by entering the catalog, as well as abosulte value (abs), greatest interger (int) and a whole bunch of other functions.</p>
<p>What about systems of equations though?</p>
<p>yes it can do system of equations. hit 2nd custom than go to F3(solve) go to the (4th option)-solve( and , (x,y)). enter your first equation before the "and" and the other equations after the "and"</p>
<p>a word on ti-89...DO NOT...I REPEAT DO NOT buy them just for the SAT. Ti-89 is something that needs time atleast a month or two to get used to and well a good pre-calc / calc class helps you learn the many of the features of this calculator (with a little bit of self-motivation)</p>
<p>the best thing to do (if you seriously want to get above 750 on math) is to figure out how to program and then make small yet efficient programs for yourself. sooner or later you'll start to figure out when and when not to use programs and you'll edit them to your liking.</p>
<p>(this may sound a bit too advanced for those that have no idea what I'm saying but for all its worth, I started with a ti-83 <my parents never bought me that thinking it was a waste of money so I got one from school. then school got a class set of 89 and then this year math department got a grant got a set of 89 titianiums. i just played around a little and now I finish math sections in 12-15 min max (usually my calc helps in like 3 maybe 4 problems...the rest its all from practice</p>
<p>moral of story: as wierd as it may sound, you don't need a ti-89 to get an 800 in math...practice is the key...a calculator is just a tool that eases the process (ironically it may even hinder your score and cause you to make careless errors if you don't double check with YOUR MIND</p>