California Surveyors Forums

I have a question, a colleague of mine is getting ready to take the state LS exam in April and is taking a review course. In the review course the volunteers have been confused about which calculators are allowed and have said only those approved by NCEES will be allowed. However the policy on the BPELSG website says "permisible calculators for the Board's state specific examinations include those approved by NCEES together with any handheld calculator that does not meet the following listed exceptions:" (the following paragraph describes QWERTY keypad arrangement on the keypads).

The assumption by her is that an HP48 calculator would be allowed on the state specific LS exam. Can anyone confirm this?

The BPELSG policy also says, "Board staff or Prometric will no confirm whether your calculator is acceptable prior to your exam." So she is asking here through me. ;).

Thanks,
Ryan.

Ryan,
When I took my state specific exam in April of last year I used my HP48, and I believe the language of the calculator policy has not changed.

Here you go: http://www.bpelsg.ca.gov/applicants/calculator.shtml

The Board's Current Calculator Policy
The Board will continue to enforce its current calculator policy, which is described below, for all state-specific examinations. The Board's calculator policy will be enforced for the California State-Specific Professional Land Surveyor; the California State-Specific Civil Engineer (Seismic Principles and Engineering Surveying); Geotechnical Engineer; and Traffic Engineer examinations.

Permissible calculators for the Board’s state-specific examinations include those approved by NCEES together with any handheld calculator that does not meet the following listed exceptions.

The use of any calculating/computing device having a QWERTY keypad arrangement similar to a typewriter or a keyboard during the exam is strictly prohibited. The following devices are also prohibited, whether or not they have a QWERTY keypad function: palmtop, laptop, handheld or desktop computers, data banks, data collectors, personal data assistants (PDA), and organizers. Calculators with other alphanumeric keypads are acceptable.
It is your responsibility to determine if your calculator meets the above criteria. Board staff or Prometric will not confirm whether your calculator is acceptable prior to your exam.

Please know that you could be required to clear your calculator memory upon exiting the exam. However, you WILL NOT be required to clear your calculator memory before you take the exam.

http://ncees.org/exams/calculator/

NCEES Calculator policy
To protect the integrity of its exams, NCEES limits the types of calculators you may bring to exam sites. The list of approved calculators is reviewed annually.

The only calculator models acceptable for use during the 2017 exams are as follows.

Casio: All fx-115 and fx-991 models (Any Casio calculator must have “fx-115” or “fx-991” in its model name.) Hewlett Packard: The HP 33s and HP 35s models, but no others Texas Instruments: All TI-30X and TI-36X models (Any Texas Instruments calculator must have “TI-30X” or “TI-36X” in its model name.)

An HP 48 would be fine (assuming no cogo card), I fancy 33's and program the crap out of them, that programming only helped during the lsit and fs, you still needed to know what you were trying to achieve to anyone taking the LS , assuming you have done your book work, breathe, don't over think the questions and win. Best of luck kids.