General Graphing Calculator Advice for the SAT/ACT I always recommend that you use a TI-84 or comparable graphing calculator for the SAT or ACT. It is important that you are comfortable with your calculator on test day, so make sure that you are consistently practicing with the calculator you plan to use. Make sure that your calculator has fresh batteries the day of the test. Nobody will supply a calculator for you if yours dies. You may have to switch between DEGREE and RADIAN modes during the test. If you are using a TI-84 (or equivalent) calculator press the MODE button and scroll down to the third line when necessary to switch between modes. Graphing Calculator Features You Should Know for the SAT/ACT Below are the most important things you should practice on your graphing calculator. (1) Practice entering complicated computations in a single step, and know when to insert parentheses. In general, there are 4 instances when you should use parentheses in your calculator. Around numerators of fractions Around denominators of fractions Around exponents Whenever you actually see parentheses in the expression Around numerators of fractions Around denominators of fractions Around exponents Whenever you actually see parentheses in the expression Examples: We will substitute a 5 in for x in each of the following examples. (2) Clear the screen before using it in a new problem. The big screen allows you to check over your computations easily. (3) Press the ANS button (2nd (-) ) to use your last answer in the next computation. (4) Press 2nd ENTER to bring up your last computation for editing. This is especially useful when you are plugging in answer choices, or guessing and checking. (5) You can press 2nd ENTER over and over again to cycle backwards through all the computations you have ever done. (6) Know where the ,√ ,π and ^ buttons are so you can reach them quickly. (7) Change a decimal to a fraction by pressing MATH ENTER ENTER. (8) Press the MATH button – in the first menu that appears you can take cube roots and nth roots for any n. (9) Know how to use the SIN, COS and TAN buttons as well as SIN-1, COS-1 and TAN-1. ACT only The following features are necessary for the ACT only. (10) Press the MATH button. Scroll right to NUM and you have lcm( and gcd(. Scroll right to PRB and you have nPr, nCr, and ! to compute permutations, combinations and factorials very quickly. (11) Know where LOG button is so you can reach it quickly. Advanced Features The following items are less important but can be useful for both the SAT and ACT. (12) Press the Y= button to enter a function, and then hit ZOOM 6 to graph it in a standard window. (13) Practice using the WINDOW button to adjust the viewing window of your graph. (14) Practice using the TRACE button to move along the graph and look at some of the points plotted. (15) Pressing 2nd TRACE (which is really CALC) will bring up a menu of useful items. For example selecting ZERO will tell you where the graph hits the x-axis, or equivalently where the function is zero. Selecting MINIMUM or MAXIMUM can find the vertex of a parabola. Selecting INTERSECT will find the point of intersection of 2 graphs. And now it’s time to start practicing lots of math problems. For this you may want to take a look at the Get 800 collection of test prep books. Click on the picture below for more information about these books. If you liked this article, please share it with your Facebook friends: See you tomorrow! Comments comments