Shall I buy a calculator now for October?

Hi everyone, I just lost my fx-991ES and I got an conditional offer for Natural Science. Shall I get a new one from WHSmith? It costs £15. According http://www.cam.ac.uk/about/natscitripos/students/first.html , it would cost £12 in Cambridge. However the page is slightly outdated. Would the price change in October due to credit crunch?

There is also a new version of fx-991ES, called fx-991ES PlUS (http://edu.casio.com/products/adves/fx991esplus/), Is Cambridge going to get new student to buy that in October?

One last thing: I got 2 Physics and Further Maths A2 exam coming up. I can always borrow fx-85ES or use fx-7400g plus for exams. They are just not as fx-991ES.

Reply 1

Excalibur

15

You're only allowed the university approved calculators in the exam with a yellow "CU" sticker on, so even if you buy a calculator now you won't be able to use it in the exams. So no, I wouldn't buy it.

Reply 2

Zhen Lin

12

The fx-991ES is one of the approved models though.

Reply 3

d.b.asf

1

There might be a sale on at WHSmiths around september, there usually is so if I were you I would wait if there's no hurry to get it.

Reply 4

stordoff

1

Excalibur

You're only allowed the university approved calculators in the exam with a yellow "CU" sticker on, so even if you buy a calculator now you won't be able to use it in the exams. So no, I wouldn't buy it.

You can get your calculator approved though (For CompSci at least). You just take it to the office and they put a sticker on it.

Reply 5

geee8891

7

one of lifes many problems

Reply 6

thefish_uk

14

You should be able to get the calculator approved once you're here. If NatSci is awkward about it I know the engineering department will do it, just walk up to the reception and ask, and it's the same sticker.

There's no harm in buying it now anyway, however it will almost certainly be cheaper buying it from the department than from a shop. They will have also opened the packaging and put the sticker on for you before you buy it which is convenient. If it was a calculator unfamiliar to you I'd say you have the advantage of being able to familiarise yourself with it before you arrive... but as you've had one before this doesn't apply.

It really, really doesn't matter.

BTW, a sneaky way of getting a calculator cheaply is go to the departmental lost property office at the end of term. They will get out a bunch and say "Take your pick, they're all about to get thrown away anyway"

Reply 7

fangfufu

OP

3

Thanks everyone, I bought one, in Ryman, costing £14.39. This is mainly because my school doesn't have fx-991ES. It would be a nightmare to use fx-85ES to do exam papers, as it doesn't have equation solver and it can't do matrices and vectors.

Edit: Has anyone got the picture of that sticker? I am just curious.

Reply 8

BurningSnowman

1

fangfufu

Edit: Has anyone got the picture of that sticker? I am just curious.

Not until now, but why not? Sadly I have nothing handy to resize with - I'll have to take this down later, but here you go:
[Unnecessarily huge image. - removed, PM me if you desperately want to see]

It may look low-tech, but underneath that sticker are biometrics, RFID and ninjas.

Reply 9

Scipio90

fangfufu

It would be a nightmare to use fx-85ES to do exam papers, as it doesn't have equation solver and it can't do matrices and vectors.

What exactly do you need all that for? The only thing I can think of in A-level that needs that sort of stuff is Markov chains, which seemed to be the only thing that assumed matrix algebra would be trivial to perform.

Reply 10

Zhen Lin

12

If you do AQA FP4 or equivalent, you'll have to calculate eigenvalues and eigenvectors of matrices, which are rather cumbersome to verify with a normal calculator, let alone calculate.

Reply 11

Supermerp

2

Zhen Lin

If you do AQA FP4 or equivalent, you'll have to calculate eigenvalues and eigenvectors of matrices, which are rather cumbersome to verify with a normal calculator, let alone calculate.

How big are these matrices? Can't you just verify them with your head?

Reply 12

fangfufu

OP

3

3x3, fx-991ES can be used to verify the determinant and inverse of matrices. For eigenvalues and eigenvectors, once you get the characteristic equation, you can use the equation solver to check if it sounds right. It is just slightly safer to use the calculator to check stuff.

You can always attempt to simplify matrices before trying to get the characteristic equation, although it does not always work.

Reply 13

SunderX

14

My calculator cost 10 quid when I got it from the lab, it may have risen to 12 quid now.

Reply 14

fishcakes

this is pathetic chatter

Reply 15

toto8462

9

How did this become a thread?

Reply 16

fangfufu

OP

3

toto8462

How did this become a thread?

It is a bit like government consultation, whenever they need to buy something, they need to make a big fuss out of it. Well I was quite bored and annoyed by losing my calculator. :woo:

Reply 17

toto8462

9

fangfufu

It is a bit like government consultation, whenever they need to buy something, they need to make a big fuss out of it. Well I was quite bored and annoyed by losing my calculator. :woo:

Nah its ok. Maybe its me just being on the other side. I graduate in a week or so, and I don't ever recall the calculator I bought or the price I paid for it ever being a point of concern. Good luck with your future studies...

Shall I buy a calculator now for October?

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