Since students were allowed to use any brand and model of calculator, except those noted above, the faculty elected to write assessment exams that did not give students using various brands and types of graphing calculators an advantage. For those students who could not or did not want to buy a graphing calculator, the department provided graphing calculators for use on tests. Due to the number of students involved, and the logistics of giving the exam at several locations, it was decided that the assessment exam would be a multiple-choice exam. It should be noted that the assessment exam constituted only one third of the final exam. The other two thirds of the final exam and all the other components of evaluation were up to the discretion of the individual instructor.
Most faculty give non-multiple choice exams and include many word problems on the exams.
The presentation gives specific examples written to make the college algebra assessment exams as calculator neutral as possible. I have not only changed many types of questions in the College Algebra course that I teach since the advent of graphing calculators, but I have also changed many types of problems in Calculus, and particularly in upper division courses such as Complex Analysis. I ask fewer definite integrals on Calculus tests, and fewer numerical complex analysis questions on Complex Analysis tests and homework. Update With the introduction of the TI-89 calculator, the Department of Mathematical Sciences voted in August 1998 not to allow any calculators to be used on the assessment exam.