Casio fx-85GTX Scientific Calculator, Black

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For more information on what calculators are permissible in exams, take a look at my Clueless about Calculators blog post. Finally, a colour warning The CASIO FX-85 GT CW comes with additional features, including a high definition display and improved menu navigation. Approved for Key stages 3 & 4, recommended for GCSE, National and Higher, Junior and Leaving.

Complete the short form that accompanies your product. Please ensure that you complete all of the sections, as this will guarantee the timely processing of your return/exchange. Our nominated carrier is Parcel Force. Deliveries are made Monday – Friday between 9.00am – 6.00pm (excluding Bank Holidays). If you have the older GT Plus then it will still do everything you need for GCSE, so don’t worry about that!Schools should be telling you to get the CW now since that’s the current model, but some haven’t caught up yet and are still telling students to buy the GTX – which is now hard to get hold of new at a reasonable price. The same thing happened when the GTX replaced the GT Plus. The standard GCSE model in the UK for the past seven or eight years has been the Casio Classwiz fx-83/85GT X (centre in the image), though in early 2023 Casio brought out the fx-83/85GT CW, which is very different and which has replaced the GT X (despite a poor reception from UK Maths teachers). More on that in this blog post. Some schools and colleges required, and some still require, their A-level students to buy more expensive graphical calculators – calculators that can plot graphs on their screens, such as the CG50 – since these are often perceived to give the student an advantage. This may well have been true in the past, but the exam boards have got wise and nowadays exam questions are carefully worded so that the possession of a graphical calculator doesn’t give the candidate a significant advantage. The fx-85GTX takes the UK's Number One Scientific Calculator a step further, by offering Solar Power to ensure no loss of battery during those crucial exams.

It’s also worth considering an A-level model, especially if you’re doing the Higher Tier and there’s a possibility that you might continue to study Maths in some form beyond GCSE. fx-85GTX contains additional features such as clearer display, clearer menus, faster processor and 14 additional functions. Allowed in every UK exam where a calculator can be used. Recommended and approved for Key Stages 3 & 4 (including GCSE, National and Higher, Junior and Leaving). The large Natural Textbook Display (Natural-V.P.A.M.) shows mathematical expressions like roots and fractions as they appear in your textbooks which increases comprehension because results are easier to understand.

The A-level model now has the generic equation solver function in the same place as the quadratic and simultaneous equation solvers, rather than in an apparently random position above the CALC button. The new A-level specification required the candidate to use a calculator featuring certain statistical functions that the GCSE model didn’t have, so the new standard model for A-level was the Classwiz fx-991EX. This also included some additional functions to help with solving equations, so it could be useful for GCSE too. For GCSE Maths, you will need a scientific calculator, but just about any model will do; see AQA’s guidance below for a list of the functions you need. In short, the new CW calculators are a lot more complicated to use than the older X models, and don’t offer any significant improvements that I can see. From the comments I’ve seen on social media from other Maths teachers, I’m far from alone in having a strong preference for the older Classwiz fx-83/85GT X and 991EX models over these new CW calculators. Casio doesn’t appear to have done much field testing of the new models before launching them on the world!