calculator on chemistry portion?

[Bluemain]

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I looked everywhere but could not find a definite answer for this. Are you allowed to use a calculator in the natural sciences portion, specifically for the general chemistry portion? Every source I see just says no calculator for quantitative portion but nothing about this.

 

[llungu]

You can't use a calculator on any of the sections.

 

[Vicviper]

The problems they give you are all very doable on scratch paper. Just do all of your practice tests and problems without a calculator and you should be just fine.

 

[purplepanda]

The problems they give you are all very doable on scratch paper. Just do all of your practice tests and problems without a calculator and you should be just fine.

logs are hard..and .011 x .00002 sucks pretty bad. I basically hate calculations for general chemistry. I haven't started QR yet, but I have a feeling I'm in for it!! 😱

 

[Vicviper]

If you know what 11 * 2 is you can do that problem in about 10 seconds. 😀

All you do is write it out in scientific notation and then it's a snap.

.011 = 11 * 10^-3

.00002 = 2 * 10^-5

11*2 = 22

22* 10^-8 = .00000022

No calculator needed =)

Also, the logs they give you on the test will be easy to calculate or estimate in your head. Most of the time estimates were all I needed to answer the question.

 

[bebebebebebe]

Don't worry about it. I was worried about this too(cuz I always used calculator before, so kinda got lazy😀); my gchem section had alot of calculations and only 3 or 4 conceptual questions, but I did fine. Even with some questions, u didnt need to do any calculations, just knew how to set the equations. Mostly they want you to know where and how to use equations,formula and really understand concepts. Even with qr section, calculations were easy; the only thing we all had problem with was time. For instance I had 10 word problems(each 3 or 4 sentences).
As others said, on practice exams, don't use calculator, and you ll do fine.

_Good luck_👍

 

[purplepanda]

If you know what 11 * 2 is you can do that problem in about 10 seconds. 😀

All you do is write it out in scientific notation and then it's a snap.

.011 = 11 * 10^-3

.00002 = 2 * 10^-5

11*2 = 22

22* 10^-8 = .00000022

No calculator needed =)

Also, the logs they give you on the test will be easy to calculate or estimate in your head. Most of the time estimates were all I needed to answer the question.

Thank you! I'll do that with scientific notation now. I have to work on logs, I've been putting it off. But, I've been reading about tricks/memorizing. Thank you again.

 

[Vicviper]

Yeah, I didn't figure that trick out until a few weeks before the DAT, it helped me tons. As far as Logs, I don't remember studying logs at all, and I managed to get a 23 on Gchem - I can't even remember a problem where I needed to use logs if they weren't just canceled out or some obvious number (like log 100).