Do you know your Calculator like the back of your hand? | Top 7 GCSE Maths Mistakes

Part 3 of 7 in our series "Top 7 Mistakes which GCSE Maths students make".

---

Invest three minutes of your time now to avoid heartbreak on Results Day!

For those of you in Year 11, or with children in that same year, you'll be acutely aware that GCSE exam season is little more than six weeks away now! The Easter holidays, during which you might have done lots of revision - or conversely, none at all (I won't tell if you don't) - are fast drawing to a close. This timely blog series by Gill Learning highlights seven common GCSE Maths mistakes and HOW to resolve them before the day of your exam rolls around! And whichever exam board your school or academic institution opts for, these common mistakes will apply to yours.

Today brings with it the third instalment in our seven-part series, so it seems like a prime time* to talk about your relationship with your calculator. Yes, it can "do sums" - you already know that much - but it can also do a lot more. And magical though it may seem, your calculator doesn't actually have a brain; that responsibility remains squarely* on your shoulders.

So unless you fancy your own mid-exam re-enactment (nightmare?) of Lucas' and Walliams' infamous "Computer says No" sketch, then I suggest you visit our 5-point calculator gym below, to check out your calculator fitness!

*If you spotted (and, dare I say it, enjoyed) these mathematical puns, then you should consider a career in STEM... or stand-up comedy... or perhaps both?!

---

These days, you quite literally have a small computer to hand while sitting the majority of your Maths exams. Sure, many boards retain one non-calculator paper (the IGCSE students out there can feel smug about dodging that non-calc bullet, mind you), but anyway a calculator would only be of any use whatsoever for about one third of those non-calculator questions, by my reckoning. A calculator can't tell you which Circle Theorem to use and why, for example.

Yet the world's most powerful and user-friendly calculator still counts for nothing without an educated user! There is a symbiotic relationship between calculator and student, but it doesn't come for free.

The number of students who don't know their calculators well enough is astounding. Make sure that you're confident how to do everything shortlisted below with your particular make and model of calculator. Affectionately, we call this our 5-point calculator gym here at Gill Learning:

• swap between fractional and decimal representations of the answers that it gives you.

• input surds, such as square roots, cube roots, etc.

• recognise that a setting has been changed (often by accident), such as angles being measured in radians rather than in degrees, and crucially know how to change it back! Either via your calculator's config menus, or by resetting the thing altogether using the little push-button, usually found on its underside.

• type fractions with an actual numerator, denominator, and fraction line in between. Avoid the "traditional" divide sign unless you're confident with you BIDMAS, BODMAS, and so on. Other silly-sounding acronyms are available.

• input numbers in standard form (also sometimes called "scientific form", including perhaps by your calculator). That's the "times ten to the power of" form, in case you're unfamiliar. Some calculators use a button labelled as EXP, or just big E, for this format, which offers a quicker shorthand to some. This applies equally to reading very large and very small answers off the display itself; if your calculator says something like 5.8123307e+9, that means 5.81 billion to 3 significant figures. I once saw a student write down just the 5.81 part as their answer to how far away Pluto is from the Sun in kilometres. Don't be that student.

---

Please be sure to subscribe to our mailing list to be the first to know whenever new blogs, topic learning resources, or tutorial availability go live on the Gill Learning website. You can sign up at the bottom of this webpage. (Don't worry, we typically don't email our followers more than once or twice per month!)

Part four in our series covering the Top 7 GCSE Maths Mistakes will explore a familiar concept in an unfamiliar setting: making a plan. Yes, that's right; your English teacher doesn't own the patent on "making a short plan" as an exam technique, and you should be applying those same good practices to your GCSE Maths exams! Intrigued? Well then, I'll see you again tomorrow.