Managing change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Managing change - Essay Example Among these businesses, there are oil fields in different countries globally, wind power production plants, and natural gas processing plants. The corporation’s business fell under the threat of diminishing levels of performance following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill three years ago (Freudenburg & Gramling, 2011). The following discussion establishes the prevailing changes in concern to the factors of production, and the relationship with the company and the global society. Analytical discussion to the causes of oil spill change Following the 2010 oil spill, British Petroleum Company established that the situation affected the broad global society from the locals that depended on the seafood as a source of livelihood to the end consumer of BP’s petroleum products. The company lacked credibility from the society as the spill caused havoc to the environment and led to destruction of natural resources (Druskat and Wolff, 2001:45). For example, the spill led to deaths of ov er ten employees, and harbored fishing as it considerably led to the death of fish and other sea organisms that remained integral to the society’s benefits. The spill affected the ecosystem and postulated remorse from the diverse human society. Therefore, BP’s management established that the ideal resolution to the increased aggression of the society because of the company’s accident would be the implementation of policies that would reshape the organization’s image towards the general environment. Precisely, the corporation established the changes as achievable through rendering and delivering support from people within the system (Gido & Clements, 2012). British Petroleum Company established that the business programs were undergoing diminishing levels of performance thus denoting the need for strategic resolution to ensure growth to the desired extend. The valuable approaches that the management resolves to use and establish the corporation’s pe rceived current state of business (Fisher, Hunter and Macrosson, 1998:35). With the increased remorse and decreased customer loyalty, the corporation analytically established change as a precise role of targeting ascertainment of the objectives. Initially, the corporation had competitively preserved a profitable market share ahead of other competitors including Royal Dutch Company, Shell, and Exxon Company. However, through enlightening of the global society into adapting environmentally friendly matters, the company fell under a situation of diminishing performances as the loyalty for its business undertakings dwindled accordingly following the oil spill. Arguably, the company resolved to develop a precise plan that would steer acquisition of the set recovery measures. Further, changes were set to recuperate the damages following the loss of the $560 million oil rig that drained the company’s capital base after environmental concerns raised and the company resulted to inject billions of dollars to the cleaning exercise. The changes deferred the company’s profitability forecasts following the capital deviation to budget for the cleaning exercise of the ocean rather than production of the oil to reach the end consumer profitably. British Petroleum Company became a victim to the environmental measures and the abiding fines after they deceived the authorities that the situation was under control, but failed to accomplish the promise (World Bank, 2012). United States of America

The communicative art of language a learning Essay Example for Free

The communicative art of language a learning Essay The existence of the diversity of Language made the communication ideas between people difficult enough because of language differences. It also affects the interaction of the teachers with their students who lacks the necessary need of the knowledge about the second language development. With these, a concept is made to introduce the process of acquiring language that involves the 5 major stages of language learning. The use of Language is a special human ability and the more advance use of it means to have added control to deal with the world where communication is the major outlet of understanding. Both in the lives of the children and the adults, there is a certain call to transmit the ideas and information they know and this is where the necessity to put all these into words and gestures comes in. One difficulty with language study is that, particularly, the learner has a language barrier that is uprooted from what is taught to them from the start. This scene occurs especially inside a classroom where a group of students could not process out what their instructor is saying due to the limited resources available to support the new language that are being introduced to them. From here, there is a concept developed to divert the second language acquisition to these students (from their teachers) which includes undergoing the five major stages of language learning that could be used as key concepts in applying the second language development in their very own classrooms. The Silent / Receptive or Preproduction Stage First of the five stages is the silent period that requires the skillful listening training. It is more focused on listening because in this early stage, students are not required to speak nor the teachers to force them to respond verbally. Here, gestures and facial expression is much needed by the students to show that they understand what is being said. Although there are some students who acquire enough self – confidence to produce their own generate language, it is best for them to give off some time understanding the new words or ideas to be receptive enough to them for further advance use. This stage usually can last from ten hours to six months, depending on the student’s capability to perceive. This initial stage shows the set-up wherein student starts to familiarize him / her self to the words or instructions offered to them and what it literally means. Though listening and understanding may be simple enough to do at the same time, students may face special conditions that may affect the usual length of time this stage may undergo. First, the environment could not be suitable enough for mere interaction as students may not apprehend the new language or what is being said because of the interference occurring around. He / she may not be comfortable enough to go along with the discussion and so as the lesson being taught to them. Second, the student could be directly affected by the personality of the speaker (which is the teacher) whose voice, gestures and presence are as often as the words being spoken. Thus there, this stage needs not only the adequate training for students but also of the teacher involve. Instructors could easily introduce the new language to the students at this early stage by doing the traditional teaching procedures such as; asking the students with queries that are subjected to be answerable with a yes or a no, initiate whole class activities that pose students to participate freely and willingly etc,. They could also encourage their students by letting them communicate on their own in form of games such as charades (which requires a lot of hand gestures and facial expressions). The Early Production Stage The early production stage enters when students could respond over 1000 active words and use them in everyday conversations. Awareness is needed in this stage because students are asked to speak in phrases or demonstrate what they know and even answering questions even with only one word. Soon students are given their freedom to relate their opinion over things with the kind of speech behavior with repetitive language patterns. Their words should be clear, precise and direct applying to the dialogue and questions asked to them. This second stage of language learning last an additional six months subsequent to the initial stage of training. But in this stage, there are things that may hinder the progress of the said language concept. One of these is that they may lose interest to respond simply because of the errors upon on their pronunciation of words or grammar. When they are corrected for over several times, the students may later learn not to respond anymore and could result into repeating again the first step of the conversation. Another is that the student may find it difficult to respond because of the lack of suitable to answer the questions being asked to them. Because of the demand to use what they have learned, they may be found it hard to alter the appropriate phrase the teacher had provided for them to respond with. The stage is eventually believed to be the first step for the development of speech usage in discussions and conversations and therefore, should be given enough time for the students to be able to understand again and again. Here, the teacher should be experimental in shifting working tactics to make learning a lot easier and fun. The teacher may ask the student certain things only answerable with a yes/ no, or just by giving short answers or in instances, requiring the students of their own opinion by nodding or shaking off their heads. With these, they would feel the security of being in a group that shares in a certain expression of thought.

Lord Of The Flies By William Golding Philosophy Essay

Lord Of The Flies By William Golding Philosophy Essay In this paper I chose to analyze the book Lord of the flies written by William Golding as I believe it matches very well the field of organizational theory by presenting the contrast between different styles of leadership and the opposed actions of two very different leaders. I will emphasize four types of leadership styles: democratic, autocratic, laissez-faire and charismatic. I chose this book because in the novel, leadership plays a very important role, as it does in real life for us, because the characters need to feel some sense of security in order for them to survive. The situational leadership theory proposes that leaders choose the best course of action based upon situational variables. Different styles of leadership may be more appropriate for certain types of decision-making: for example in a situation where the leader is the most knowledgeable and experienced member of a group, an authoritarian style might be most appropriate, in other instances where group members are skilled experts, a democratic style would be more effective. The fundamental underpinning of the situational leadership theory is that there is no single best style of leadership. Effective leadership is task-relevant, and the most successful leaders are those that adapt their leadership style to the maturity of the individual or group they are attempting to lead or influence. Effective leadership varies, not only with the person or group that is being influenced, but it also depends on the task, job or function that needs to be accomplished. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situa tional_leadership_theory) The existence of mankind on earth relies on various factors: the basic needs for humans to survive are food, water, shelter, but these are only the physical needs of man. Humans also have social and mental needs which require the existence of law in order to be able to coexist peacefully with themselves, the nature and the environment. The only way that law and order can be achieved in human society is by a higher authority, or some form of government or leader. William Golding tries to touch on some of these aspects of our civilization through the various characters he creates in his novel Lord of the Flies. (http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2005/12/13/185154/04/) The main theme of the novel is the conflict between two opposed instincts that exist within all human beings: the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, follow moral commands, and value the good of the group against the instinct to gratify ones immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce ones will. The two main leaders in the story, through their similar and different leadership characteristics and objectives fight back and forth to gain the discipline of the other boys on the island in order to gain the power to make the decisions that they feel should be made, sometimes for the better of the entire group, and sometimes for their own purpose. The leaders which are presented throughout the novel all have their own method of leading, and serve different purposes. The elected and democratic leader is Ralph while the self-appointed leader who tries to run a totalitarian society is Jack. In the beginning they work towards common goals, but eventually their different views on how to lead the group lead them into conflict. From the very beginning Ralph assumes primary responsibility for the groups tasks when he starts organizing their living, because he realizes that not doing so will result in savagery and moral chaos (Hynes, 59). Being aware of the situation in which they are, Ralph uses Piggys idea of the conch and takes the role of gathering the survivors. When the boys arrive in the island they automatically seek for some kind of law and order, since there are not any grown-ups. They want to belong to a group, with someone in charge to lead them, and make them feel safe. Ralph becomes this person, after being chosen in a democratic election. He tries to hear what everybody has to say. Let him be chief with the trumpet thing (Golding, 30). The conch is a symbol of democracy because it entitles everyone to having an opinion in all matters of importance. It also symbolizes law and order, everything which Ralph stands for. Although he is accepted as a leader in the beginning, his priorities as a leade r and way of thinking create conflict with some of the others. Theres another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they might not notice us. So we must make a smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire. (Golding, 49) When one observes Ralphs actions, it becomes obvious that he is not only a task-motivated leader, but also a democratic leader, which results from the fact that he leads an expedition through the forest in order to find out if the island is deserted or not. Ralph also wants shelters to be built where they can sleep, branches to be collected for a signal fire and a specific place beyond the bathing-pool to be used as a lavatory. Furthermore, he introduces rules when he tells the boys that they have to have Hands up like at school (Golding, 31) and that only the person holding the conch is allowed to speak. In addition, the conch makes the boys feel they participate; when holding it they get a chance to speak their mind and the others must listen. It is a significant trait for a democratic leader to aim for an environment of equality. Without a doubt, Ralph is also a relationship-motivated leader. He is compassionate and caring when he tries to comfort the littluns (Golding, 61) by saying there is no beast to be afraid of. He is interested in what the other boys think and he listens to them and what they have to say before he makes decisions. His closest follower, Piggy, thinks a great deal about what has to be done and how they can do it and Ralph brings up Piggys ideas at the assemblies. In brief, these are all examples that support the fact that Ralph is a complex leadership figure. He wants to be a sympathetic and egalitarian leader who does not avoid his responsibilities, but he is only twelve years old and has neither the experience needed for the task, nor the support from the other boys. In the beginning, all the boys stand by the rules set by Ralph. After a while this society starts to break up as man has a way of choosing the easiest way out. The boys get tired of the responsibility and want to play, hunt and have fun. They do not want to get rescued as they are enjoying themselves too much. When moving on to the authoritarian leader, represented by Jack, we find a character who starts his advance for the role of leader at the very first assembly when he states that he is the rightful leader of the schoolboys since he is the head boy in the choir. He is arrogant and disrespectful when he yells at his choir and bullies Piggy by screaming Shut up Fatty! (Golding, 17). Jack feels humiliated when Ralph is elected. Although he temporarily gives in, Jack soon starts using different strategies to undermine Ralphs authority, and at the same time making himself more powerful. He stirs up the group by lying about Ralph having said that the hunters are bad at hunting. And even though Jack is the one who suggests that they need rules, and is quick to point out that the one who breaks them will be punished, he soon breaks them himself when he, for instance, speaks without holding the conch or makes himself heard above the other speakers (Olsen, 13). These actions are unopposed and we aken Ralphs leadership, and according to Kirsten Olsen it is the breaking of old rules and making his own (Olsen, 14) that paves the way for Jack coming to power. After being publicly humiliated when his attempt to have Ralph unseated fails, Jack decides to leave the group and have a fort of his own. Cunningly he tries to win people over from Ralphs camp by accusing him of being a coward and a bad hunter. Jack also offers the hungry boys meat if they leave Ralph and join his group instead. Not surprisingly most boys rather eat pork and play than pick berries and do tiresome chores under Ralphs command. As a result of Jacks behavior, one notices how Ralphs leadership style gradually changes into a laissez-faire leader. At one point he wonders what is going on: Things are breaking up. I dont understand why. We began well; we were happy (Golding, 87). Later he talks to the assembled boys and asks: Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?(Golding, 200). According to Ralph the first alternative is the only possible one, but the others do not seem to agree with him. Jack is a charismatic leader who paints his face with clay before he goes hunting for pigs. The hunters join Jack because they feel as if the mask on Jacks face commands them to do so. Most boys just do what the leader says, or what the majority does, without thinking in terms of right and wrong or friendship, since they are afraid to be on their own, or even worse, a target of the other boys aggressions. Compared to the democratic leader Ralph, Jack is an authoritarian leader who yells at his peers to make his point, threatens them into obedience, makes them commit crimes as well as actually hurting them physically. An example of Jacks tactics when he finally is in power is the situation where he orders his subordinates to tie up the twins Sam and Eric, and then turns to Ralph, saying: See? They do what I want (Golding, 199). As a consequence of Jacks increasing number of followers, Ralph finds himself being the leader of only a few boys. One person, though, who never abandons him is Piggy, the representative of common sense. He desperately tries to adjust the situation on the island to conditions more like those at home and he asks: What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? Whats grown-ups going to think? Going off hunting pigs letting fires out - (Golding, 98). Compared to Jack, who leads a primary group, the choir, Ralph, with the exception of Piggy, does not have a group of close and loyal allies. A typical example of how Ralph is betrayed by some of his followers is the actions of twins Sam and Eric. They try to avoid conflicts, and therefore never openly take a stand for Ralph. The end of Ralphs leadership is a fact when Jack and his band of hunters have killed Simon and Piggy, the two most devoted boys. There are no more boys to lead, and without followers Ralph can no longer be a leader. In conclusion, both leaders have different characteristics and priorities, which make them lead the group in different ways. Ralph is considered to be the elected leader and Jack the self-appointed leader. These leaders have different skills and different views on how to create society, which leads them into many conflicts. This just goes to show that humans cannot be trusted with power, as power corrupts. The moment Jack becomes the leader of his own group he turns into a savage and does things without thinking. The same can be said about governments in the world today, who start wars with the purpose of fulfilling their own needs, and they do not mind harming others to achieve their goals and objectives. Maybe humans really are savages that cannot live in peace and coexist on this earth with all the animals and the environment. It might be quite possible that Goldings view of humans as being the worst creatures on earth, is not very hard to comprehend, as you can relate to the conf licts created by leadership that are seen throughout the world.

The ID3 Algorithm :: Classification Algorithms

The ID3 Algorithm Abstract This paper details the ID3 classification algorithm. Very simply, ID3 builds a decision tree from a fixed set of examples. The resulting tree is used to classify future samples. The example has several attributes and belongs to a class (like yes or no). The leaf nodes of the decision tree contain the class name whereas a non-leaf node is a decision node. The decision node is an attribute test with each branch (to another decision tree) being a possible value of the attribute. ID3 uses information gain to help it decide which attribute goes into a decision node. The advantage of learning a decision tree is that a program, rather than a knowledge engineer, elicits knowledge from an expert. Introduction J. Ross Quinlan originally developed ID3 at the University of Sydney. He first presented ID3 in 1975 in a book, Machine Learning, vol. 1, no. 1. ID3 is based off the Concept Learning System (CLS) algorithm. The basic CLS algorithm over a set of training instances C: Step 1: If all instances in C are positive, then create YES node and halt. If all instances in C are negative, create a NO node and halt. Otherwise select a feature, F with values v1, ..., vn and create a decision node. Step 2: Partition the training instances in C into subsets C1, C2, ..., Cn according to the values of V. Step 3: apply the algorithm recursively to each of the sets Ci. Note, the trainer (the expert) decides which feature to select. ID3 improves on CLS by adding a feature selection heuristic. ID3 searches through the attributes of the training instances and extracts the attribute that best separates the given examples. If the attribute perfectly classifies the training sets then ID3 stops; otherwise it recursively operates on the n (where n = number of possible values of an attribute) partitioned subsets to get their "best" attribute. The algorithm uses a greedy search, that is, it picks the best attribute and never looks back to reconsider earlier choices. Discussion ID3 is a nonincremental algorithm, meaning it derives its classes from a fixed set of training instances. An incremental algorithm revises the current concept definition, if necessary, with a new sample. The classes created by ID3 are inductive, that is, given a small set of training instances, the specific classes created by ID3 are expected to work for all future instances. The distribution of the unknowns must be the same as the test cases.

Coming full circle Essay

You could almost say that Leadership, the US Army, the Quality Circle (Editors, 2007), and the Baldrige Criteria (Commerce, 2006) have a shared history: Having established above the importance of leadership in all aspects of life in that it is found in the military as well as in the civilian: business even in the spiritual (servant-leadership) or religious—it was the US Army which took the lead in the formation of â€Å"quality circles† during the Second World War in the 1940s to ensure that the US produce large quantities of war materiel of best quality (Anonymous, 2002). It even took a US Professor, W.Edwards Deming (Editors, 2007), of Western culture, to teach the Japanese, of Eastern culture, to this concept of â€Å"quality circles† (Anonymous, 2002; Editors, 2007; Jarvis, 2006; Swinton, 2007), catapulting Japan slowly but surely to Asian world power status and endearing Prof. Deming to the Japanese who honored him with a prestigious award after his name, the Deming Award. Faced with slack economic progress in the 1970s, the US government set up the Baldrige Criteria/Awards to catch up and to try to lead again in the world’s industries (Commerce, 2001, , 2005, , 2006, , 2007a, , 2007b, , 2007c). In effect, it cannot be avoided if the Baldrige Awards is compared with the Deming Award in Japan. All things besides, the Baldrige Criteria attempts to accurately measure those seven (7) identified aspects (more about later) which contribute to organizational success. Even this year 2007 (Commerce, 2007b), many modifications have been in place in the Baldrige Criteria to keep up with new challenges met, showing how dynamic the Baldrige Method is. It now took the Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve ESGR (E. S. G. R., 2007), a US Department of Defense agency working for the US Armed Forces to take the lead in possibly showing other applications of readily available Baldrige Criteria raw scores. Statement of the Thesis Problem Attempting to prove that when Leadership Scores Category are high as measured by the Baldrige Criteria, then the other six (6) Category areas measure high as well, such as Strategic Planning; Customer and Market Focus; Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Measurement; Human Resource Focus; Process Management; and Business Results and to show a correlation as such. Hypotheses Hypotheses to be tested: 1. Leadership scores category are significantly correlated with the scores of the other six category areas. 2. Significant multiple regression equation exists between leadership scores (Y, dependent variable) and the scores of the six category areas (X, independent variables). Objectives of the Thesis 1. To determine the difference between Leaders (or Senior Leaders) and Others (or Junior Leaders) using performance excellence criteria of the Baldrige framework. 2. To determine which of the different concerns contribute to leadership. Materials and Methods The Survey Data Provider The set of raw data used as the primary research of this paper provided the basis for the Report (Peacock, 2006) submitted by Gartman and Associates, a Baldrige-accredited contractor duly authorized to conduct the Baldrige survey using the 2006 Baldrige Criteria as the framework. This criterion is the de facto criteria of performance excellence used globally by manufacturing, service, small business, health care, education, and nonprofit/government for improving organizational performance. The criteria has seven focus areas: Leadership; Strategic Planning; Customer and Market Focus; Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management; Human Resources Focus; Process Management; and Business Results. The Survey Date and the Target Institution. During the week of 4 through 8 December 2006, Gartman and Associates performed a high-level, initial â€Å"quick look† assessment of the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, ESGR (E. S. G. R. , 2007). Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) is a Department of Defense (DoD) organization of the United States of America (USA). It is a staff group within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs (OASD/RA), which is in itself a part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The nation’s Reserve components, referring to the total of all National Guard members and Reserve forces from all branches of the military, (Laurent, 2006) comprise approximately 46 percent of the total available military manpower of the USA’s Armed Forces . The current National Defense Strategy indicates that the National Guard and Reserve will be full partners in the fully integrated Total Force. The USA Reserve Forces will spend more time away from the workplace defending the nation, supporting a demanding operations tempo and training, take note, to maintain their mission readiness. In this environment, civilian employers play a critical role in the defense of the nation by complying with existing employment laws protecting the rights of workers who serve in the Reserve component. ESGR was established in 1972 to promote cooperation and understanding between Reserve component members and their civilian employers and to assist in the resolution of conflicts arising from an employee’s military commitment. ESGR is the lead DoD organization for this mission under DoD Directive 1250. 1.

4 Expert PSAT Calculator Tips + Approved Calculators

4 Expert PSAT Calculator Tips + Approved Calculators SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips PSAT math can be intimidating, so it would be nice to be able to have some computerized help. But can you use a calculator on the PSAT? Yes, you can, though only on the second of the two Math sections on the PSAT.But what kind of calculator can you use, and when does it make sense to use a calculator on the PSAT? Read on for the complete list of approved calculators for PSAT test day and our top tips for using your calculator effectively. Can You Use a Calculator on the PSAT? Like the SAT, the PSAT has four sections: Reading, Writing, Math (No Calculator), and Math (Calculator). The No Calculator Math section is 25 minutes long, and has 17 questions, while the Calculator section is 45 minutes long and has questions. As the name suggests, the only time during the PSAT where you can use your calculator is on thefinal Calculator mathsection. According to College Board, most questions on the Calculator Math section can be answered without using a calculator, but a calculator could be useful on some questions. Translated from the College Board's cautious official language: you absolutely should use a calculator when it’s called for to make your life easier, but don’t over-complicate questions by using a calculator when it would be quicker to solve by hand. For example, it’s faster (and presents lower chances of error) to use your calculator to multiply 34 x 174. However, it’s much faster to solve an equation like 3x + 4y = 17, 4x + 8y = 26 by hand than to use your graphing calculator to do it. Approved Calculators for PSAT Test Day The College Board allows three types of calculators on the PSAT: four-function calculators, scientific calculators, and graphing calculators. Four-function calculators are so-called because they can basically just do four things: add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Although you could theoretically use just a four-function calculator on the PSAT, it's not recommended, most likely because four-function calculators usually lack useful features like parentheses and entry lines. The only advantages of four-function calculators are that they tend to be relatively inexpensive and take up less space. But honestly, the disadvantages of not being able to see what you just entered into the calculator far outweigh the benefits. All scientific calculators are permitted for use on the PSAT. A scientific calculator has all the features of a four-function calculator plus a few other useful things. Key functions included in all scientific calculators are parentheses, pi, and trigonometric functions, as can be seen below: AJC1/Flickr Parentheses in particular are great because you can use them to make sure your calculations happen in the right order. For example, ((15 x 19) – (13/2)) /100 is a whole lot easier to enter in all at once with parentheses, instead of having to break it up into its individual parts and then re-use the parts; every extra calculation entry you do introduces the chance of more error. The final type of calculator you can bring to the PSAT is a graphing calculator. Graphing calculators are great because they will definitely have features like entry lines as well as everything a scientific calculator has. They can also be helpful in visualizing solutions to linear equations – for instance, if you want to find out where the two equations cross, you can just look at the graph to get the coordinates The only problem with graphing calculators is that their multifunctionality can trick students into using them when not using a calculator would be faster. Avoid this trap by using a graphing calculator as you take practice tests and challenging yourself to question each time you use the calculator if it’s really necessary, or if it’s taking up more time than it’s saving. Unlike with scientific calculators, not all models of graphing calculator are allowed under the PSAT calculator rules. Below is a chart of acceptable PSAT graphing calculators, sorted by brand. Casio Hewlett-Packard Radio Shack Sharp Texas Instruments Other Brands FX-6000 series HP-9G EC-4033 EL-5200 TI-73 Datexx DS-883 FX-6200 series HP-28 series EC-4034 EL-9200 series TI-80 Micronta FX-6300 series HP-38G EC-4037 EL-9300 series TI-81 Smart2 FX-6500 series HP-39 series EL-9600 series (stylus not permitted) TI-82 FX-7000 series HP-40 series EL-9900 series TI-83/TI-83 Plus FX-7300 series HP-48 series TI-83 Plus Silver FX-7400 series HP-49 series TI-84 Plus/TI-84 Plus T FX-7500 series HP-50 series TI-84 Plus CE/TI-84 Plus CE-T FX-7700 series HP Prime TI-84 Plus Silver FX-7800 series TI-84 Plus C Silver FX-8000 series TI-85 FX-8500 series TI-86 FX-8700 series TI-89 FX-8800 series TI-89 Titanium FX-9700 series TI-Nspire/TI-Nspire CX FX-9750 series TI-Nspire CAS/TI-Nspire CX CAS FX-9860 series TI-Nspire CM-C/TI-Nspire CM-C CAS CFX-9800 series TI-Nspire CX-C CAS CFX-9850 series CFX-9950 series CFX-9970 series FX 1.0 series Algebra FX 2.0 series FX-CG-10 (PRIZM) FX-CG-20 Want to improve your PSAT score by 150 points? We have the industry's leading PSAT prep program. Built by Harvard grads and SAT full scorers, the program learns your strengths and weaknesses through advanced statistics, then customizes your prep program to you so that you get the most effective prep possible. Check out our 5-day free trial today: Avoid These PSAT Calculators Some calculators, like TI-92 Plus or Voyage 200, are banned from the PSAT because they violate College Board PSAT calculator guidelines. Most of these guidelines are common sense, like that you can’t use a calculator that makes noise or a calculator that can access the Internet. A few of the other qualifications, though, are less obvious, like the fact that you can’t use a calculator that requires an electrical outlet. If your calculator meets any of the following criteria, you cannot use it on the PSAT: It’s part of a portable/handheld computer, laptop, electronic writing pad, or pocket organizer. Shockingly, you can't use your computer while taking the PSAT. It has QWERTY (i.e., typewriter) keypads as part of hardware or software (e.g., TI-92 Plus, Voyage 200). You also can’t use any â€Å"hardware peripherals† with an otherwise approved calculator (e.g. an external keyboard or LCD screen) It has pen-input/stylus/touch-screen capability (e.g., Palm, PDAs, Casio ClassPad) It has wireless or Bluetooth capability It paper tapes It can "talk" (terrifying) or make noise It requires an electrical outlet It can access the Internet It has cell phone capability or audio/video recording capability. No using your cellphone calculator on the PSAT! It has a digital audio/video player It has a camera or scanning capability No external view screens allowed on yourPSAT calculator! (Joe Haupt/Flickr) 4 PSAT Calculator Tips Now that you know what your options are for approved calculators for PSAT testing, let's go through a few key tips to help you use your calculatoreffectively on test day. Tip 1: Bring an Approved Calculator to the Test It’s better to have a calculator you can use and end up not needing it than to need a calculator and not have one. The same thing goes for making sure it’s an approved calculator; there’s no point in bringing a calculator with you that you can’t use. Tip 2: Be Familiar With Your Calculator One of the main reasons to use a calculator is that it enhances your speed and accuracy on the test. If you’re using a calculator you’ve never used before, you’ll be slower and more prone to errors, no matter how fancy the calculator is. Avoid test-day peril by using the calculator you plan to use on the PSAT for your everyday schoolwork and homework as much as possible. That way, when PSAT time comes, you’ll be comfortable with your calculator. Tip 3: Check the Calculator's Entry Line When you’re doing calculations during the test, it can be easy to get caught up in the rush to finish the test in time and accidentally hit "8" instead of "5," or "x" instead of "-". To limit the impact of these errors on you, double check the entry line before hitting â€Å"enter† to make sure you haven’t entered in the wrong number or operation. Double-checking the entry line is particularly important if you’re not using a graphing calculator that keeps a running log of all the calculations you’ve done. Tip 4: Know When Not to Use Your Calculator Especially if you have a graphing calculator, it can seem like the easier thing to do is to let the calculator work for you. Meticulously entering in an equation into the calculator and getting it to solve it for you, however, can take way more time than just doing it by hand would. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the calculator at all; rather, use it as a supplement to your skills, rather than as a replacement. Be warned,you shouldn't rely on calculator apps to do the hard work for you. PSAT proctors have the right to inspect your calculator and delete all programmed apps on there, and if you’d grown accustomed to using apps to solve problems, you’ll be in hot water. Hot water: beautiful to watch spewing from a geyser, less beautiful to be in. What’s Next? Now that you've gotten your calculator figured out, what's left to do? Only to learn what a perfect PSAT score is and how to get it, naturally. Ready to get into the details of what you'll be tested on when you take the PSAT? We discuss what's covered (and what's not) in our complete guide to the PSAT. Find out when you can take the PSAT with our up-to-date PSAT test dates article. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now: