Calculator usage

You must be familiar with your calculator. You should understand the use of all keys, including brackets, and you must understand the fundamentals of arithmetic, in particular BIDMAS, the order of operations.

You should also be familiar with the use of memory, if it has one, and the ANS key, as they can save you time in an exam.

You should always think about your calculator results, using mental arithmetic or even common sense to have an idea of roughly what the answer should be, as if you have made a mistake keying in then you will get the wrong answer.

You should also be aware of what can cause calculator errors: division by 0, and taking the square root of a negative number are common causes.

For everyday work with numbers you should at least have a calculator with brackets, memory, and square root.

For GCSE and A-level you need to have the trig functions (sin. cos, tan), exp and log.