Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nbires!hao!husc6!cca!g-rh
From: g-rh@cca.CCA.COM (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Calculators in exams, was: Becoming CAI literate
Message-ID: <24954@cca.CCA.COM>
Date: 26 Feb 88 08:03:19 GMT
References: <2032@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> <3900008@nucsrl.UUCP> <1988Feb24.224849.928@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: g-rh@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Distribution: na
Organization: Computer Corp. of America, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 34

In article <1988Feb24.224849.928@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu ("Timothy J. Horton") writes:
>....Why slow
>everyone down on the odd multiplication they need to do, when in real life
>you would just reach for a calculator?  It's like having a cooking exam
>with no knives.  As Oog says, with pride, "that's the way we did it in the
>old days."

	If you have a reasonable aptitude for arithmetic, it is faster to do
the odd multiplication in your head than reaching for a calculator -- if you
have been trained for quick mental arithmetic.  I amuse myself and startle 
people by giving the answer to routine calculations while they are still 
fumbling with the calculator.

	I am inclined to think that quick mental arithmetic ought to be
taught in the schools.  Granted that not everyone has the aptitude for it.
But the average person has much more capacity than you might think -- the
lower schools seem to operate on the principle of teaching people that they
can't do arithmetic very well.  It has seemed to me that it would be better
to operate on the principle that people can do arithmetic efficiently and
to train them to do so.

	Quick mental arithmetic is simply a matter of a bag of efficient
techniques and some drill until you can apply them as a matter of course.

>Does "B.C." really mean "Before Calculators"?

Correct.  The BC period is divided into two eras, the age of sliderules,
and the "Before Sliderules" era, also known as the time of B.S.

-- 

In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
	Richard Harter, SMDS  Inc.