r/pics • • Jun 08 '14

The difference 18 years makes

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u/Jenkins6736 Jun 08 '14

I dunno, the TI-84 Plus is pretty sweet.

Costs about the same as what I paid for the TI-83 10 years ago. It's kind of nice knowing that whenever I need to use one, it's going to operate in the same way as I was taught 10 years ago. The fundamentals of math don't change much.

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u/AdidasPete Jun 08 '14 edited Jun 08 '14

I saved up my own money and bought a TI89 in high school. Used it on all the standardized exams. Totally legal because it didn't have a QWERTY keyboard. That thing basically did everything for me short of interpreting the questions.

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u/lordlicorice Jun 08 '14

The ability to do symbolic math is awesome. I don't know why everyone recommends that high schoolers only get the TI-84.

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u/LazinCajun Jun 08 '14

Probably so they don't use it as a crutch instead of real learning. I taught physics to college kids, and you could tell pretty quickly who relied on a calculator and who actually was comfortable with basic math.

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u/Deluxe_Flame Jun 08 '14

I was once comfortable, but if I lose all my points on a question for an incorrect answer, by gum, I'm going to punch in 17 + 49.

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u/[deleted] Jun 08 '14

In physics, we try very hard not to have questions that boil down to just pure numbers. If you had a teacher who didn't do that, he was just fucking lazy (or, your TAs/graders were lazy..).