Help Justify Advanced Placement

[Alex]

I had to do it all the time in my high school chemistry classes. Maybe it is one of those things usurped by modern calculators since back in my day we had to do it the sequence by hand (we did have calculators for doing the basic arithmatic.

But it isn't so much whether that specific task is done as the concept is important (and being able to do and understand that math indicates certain fundamental competencies). Even if the students don't actually calculate standard deviation, I have to think that the concept (imprecision of measurement and variability of results) will be discussed quite a bit.