If you’re studying GCSE or A Level maths, you will be spending a lot of time using a calculator. Sometimes by accident (or by a friend getting hold of it!) the mode of a calculator is changed and the results don’t display in the way you want it to. You don’t want this to happen when you’re sitting an exam! For example, your calculator might be stuck in TRUE/FALSE mode, as in the picture below.
This mode does not allow you to actually calculate anything, as you can see below where I tried to calculate 662 – 3. So you’d be in trouble if your calculator ended up like this in an exam!
This short guide will show you how to reset your calculator so it returns to the correct mode.
Step 1
First you need to press CLR, which you can see in yellow writing above the 9 button.
To do this, we press the SHIFT button in the top left (circled in red) followed by the 9 button (circled in green).
Step 2
You will then be on this screen. You have three options – Setup, Memory and All. Technically Setup and All will both work, but we only need to clear the setup so we should choose that option. We do this by pressing the 1 button (circled in red).
Step 3
You will now be on this screen. The calculator is just checking that you want to do this. You just need to press the equals button (circled in red).
Step 4
The setup has now been reset. You just need to press the AC button (circled in red) to restart the calculator and everything will be back to normal.
The calculator is now back to standard mode, and I can do calculations again. So this time when I type in 662 – 3, I get the answer of 4353. Everything is back to normal!
I hope you found this guide useful. If your son or daughter needs any help with any aspect of mathematics, book in a free taster session.
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