Are students allowed to use mechanical aids when they do the provincial maths assessment test in Grades 3, 6 and 10? If not, why not? When I did maths (arithmetic it was called then) 70 years ago, there were no mechanical aids. It was all fingers and memory work. People who worked behind the counter in a grocery store had to do all the calculations for purchases in their head. Now, cash registers do it in a fraction of the time. The important thing is to know how to use a cash register, not how to multiply 7x9 and get 63 using just your memory. Maybe, if computer use was allowed, the test results would vastly improve. That's why more emphasis should be placed on understanding the functions of mathematics rather than bringing back boring repetitious drills and memory work made obsolete in real life by faster and more efficient mechanical aids.