Get approval

Calculator and linguistic approvals are available during certain times. Get your non-programmable calculator approved so that you can use them in your exams.

Approvals are currently available from the Student Centre in the Jane Foss Russell Building, Monday to Friday, 9 am to 4:30 pm.

Bring your calculator with you on the day so we can put an approval sticker on it to confirm it's been approved.

Make sure you check if you have a calculator from the respective list:

• pre-approved models
• approvable models.

The earlier you get your calculator approved, the sooner you can be organised for exams. The approval process only takes a few minutes once you're being seen by our team in the approvals hub.

Calculators

Your unit of study coordinator decides which kind of calculator, if any, can be used in your final in-person exam. This will be outlined on your personal exam timetable. You may need to get your calculator approved before you are allowed to bring it into your exam.

Types of calculators:

• programmable – these do not need to be approved if they are permitted in your exam
• non-programmable – these need to be approved before your exam, unless they are on the pre-approved list.

Any non-programmable calculators need to be from the following lists if you want to use them in your exam. Make sure that you understand the information about what you can bring into your in-person exams.

Pre-approved calculators

Several models of calculator have been pre-approved and you can use them in exams without having them approved at the approvals hub.

If you have a model from one of following series of calculator, you do not need to have them approved:

• CASIO fx-82 series calculators
• Casio fx-100 series calculators
• Casio fx-991 series calculators
• Texas Instruments BAII Plus

Bilingual dictionaries

You can bring a bilingual dictionary into your exam if you have first had it checked and approved.

• Bilingual dictionaries used during exams can only provide word-to-word translations.
• Dictionaries that provide definitions or explanations of the meaning of words aren't allowed.

These guidelines have been developed to be fair and consistent by making sure the dictionaries don't offer assistance during exams other than pure translation of words.

Once your bilingual dictionary has been approved, it will be stamped with an official University of Sydney stamp and can be used in all exams that allow the use of bilingual dictionaries.

Your dictionary may be inspected before your exam begins to ensure it is free of information that could be used for cheating.

Dictionaries with these features will not be allowed in your exam:

• dictionaries that contain images of any kind, including dictionaries that have had pages with images torn out
• electronic dictionaries
• dictionaries containing notes
• standard English-to-English dictionaries
• thesauruses
• textbook-style dictionaries, such as an accounting dictionary
• periodic tables.

Examples of bilingual dictionary formats

The following table may be useful for identifying bilingual dictionaries.

If your bilingual dictionary:

• exclusively uses the bilingual dictionary format, it can be approved
• uses the standard dictionary format, it will be rejected.