Scientific or graphing calculator? What should students purchase? As your children grow older the school supply list might be shorter, but it's not always cheaper. One thing that could cause sticker shock to parents of high and middle school students is a special calculator. Schools generally prefer that students are provided with their own personal scientific calculator. For the most advanced math classes, such as AP Calculus the use of a graphing calculator may be required. What is the difference? Scientific calculators perform functions beyond subtraction, addition, division and multiplication. Scientific calculators typically have buttons specifically designed for parentheses, trigonometric functions, exponents pi, and inverses -- in addition to other functions. A graphing calculator does even more. It has a bigger screen, allowing you to enter a formula, then view a graph of it. The Best Purchase's Geek Squad agent Derek Meister states that scientific c