Another excuse for more failures:-)

[Tim Streater]

Why would they provide a read-only version for macOS?

[Tim Streater]

Certainly you could do it in your head. I used to get sent off to do some grocery shopping so I had to remember the list of items, remember the cost of each one, add them up in my head and check I still had the correct change to return once I got home.

[Tim Streater]

While this is true, the ability to do mental arithmetic is important, It also provides a method to quickly approximate the answer to a problem you are going to work out with a pencil or perhaps a calculator. Which means you will get to your correct destination rather than ending up in central Africa.

[Tim Streater]

We used them for O-Level.

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

JNugent brought next idea :

It certainly was.

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

Steve Walker expressed precisely :

They were in use for O level late 50's, early 60's, I know because I was there using them.

[Chris Hogg]

Rings a bell. IIRC there was also Maths for Science.

Logs were used at O-level as far back as 1940.

O-level 1940 Paper 1

Click on 'A' or 'O' for more maths exam papers of yesteryear.

I know I had a book of log tables in the late 1950's, and a slide rule in the early 1960's.

[Fredxx]

More info needed.

Unit of electricity, is this kWh, or Therm?

If a 1950 unit was kWh, while I can lookup a Therm is 29.3kWh, in exams conditions would have had to be told to complete the question.

[Fredxx]

It did say log tables could be used, the old equivalent to a calculator.

[The Natural Philosopher]

My O levels were in the 60s - pretty sure we used log tables then, I had become familiar with them at age 11 anyway.

Slide rule for A level physics and chemistry...

[Steve Walker]

I was not clear, I simply meant that logs were introduced to pupils at 'O'-level and not held back until 'A'-levels.

[Tim Streater]

I was certainly using them for th O-level syllabus. Exam was 1961. Did Additional Maths for the '62 exam (included calculus).

[Tim Streater]

The info given is ample to answer the Q.

[Andrew]

I seem to remember having to do something called 'Calculus' before O level, as well as 'maths'.

[Tim Streater]

Calculus is part of Maths, yes.

[ARW]

I was 4 months old:-)

[Rex Jones]

Not clear if the markers would penalise that approach tho in those days.

[Rex Jones]

Not with primary school, they are teaching more basic stuff like being able to read and write and do simple arithmetic.

And they do that much better than they used to, you don't see anyone except immigrants who cant read and write at all anymore.

Not sure that is true either with the more menial jobs.

Trouble is that that is more of a test of good memory than being able to think and a test of who is prepared to put the effort into studying.

The better method is to set them a task that they will be doing and see if they can do that well. I'm amazed that the operation Adam works for doesn't do that. Yes, with apprentices you can't expect them to know all the rules and tricks to doing things quicker, but you can certainly see if they know which end of a screwdriver is which etc.

[Rex Jones]

That was silly given that cheap calculators were readily available by then.

[Tim+]

What? You?ll be telling us next you don?t remember the first moon landing! ;-)

Tim