[jimmaswell]

On the other side, I get annoyed at having to do a quadratic equation or matrix multiplication by hand for the millionth time because I can't have advanced calculators on the tests or quizzes. After you understand the concepts of those it becomes pointless to do them by hand so much. What am I getting out of manually multiplying two matrices? It prepares you for a situation that will pretty much never exist - not being able to look up a formula or make wolframalpha do some tedious algebra for you. This is what I like about physics tests; they tend to just give you a sheet full of all the formulas because if you don't understand the concepts of the material, then all the formulas in the world aren't going to help you. Physics professors tend to understand what's important more, in my experience.