This assignment guides you to examine your approaches to two test problems, and to adopt better ways to approach them. It is arguably the most educational exercise of the course. Please devote your best effort to it. Read and follow the instructions carefully and completely.
Write an analysis of what went wrong for two test problems that were not awarded full credit. Your analysis will consist of two well-expressed, insightful essays, one for each problem. If you did not get two questions wrong, great! Simply address what you did get wrong, and indicate to me that there is nothing more to address.
For both problems, examine why you answered as you did. If you can not remember, analyze another problem and resolve to pay better attention to yourself in the future. If you chose your answer for a lame reason such as “I had no idea, so I just guessed” or “I meant to answer c, so I don’t know why I circled a,” or “I was running out of time, so I just had to put something down before I handed the test in,” analyze another problem. If all of the questions you got wrong were for lame reasons, explicitly state that they were the only questions you got wrong. And resolve to avoid doing such things in the future.
Learn why the “correct” answer really is correct. Study until you understand the problem and the underlying physics well enough to teach someone else how to solve it. If you can’t make sense of it, please see me! Learn how to approach and solve the problem before writing the essay.
Compare your original thinking to the correct approach. You should be able to identify where your thinking went wrong. What should you have known to choose the correct path instead of the path you followed? This is your missing insight.
Be sure of the correct approach to the problem. Check that your missing insight really is the critical link between what you understood when you took the test and what you need to understand to solve the problem. If you have any uncertainty about what is expected in this assignment, or about the physics underlying the test question, contact me!
Thoroughly explain your thinking in writing, so that I can understand what was going on inside your head. Include every detail. Explain any assumptions you made, hunches you followed, and shortcuts you took. I need to understand my students’ thinking, so that I can meet them where they are.
Then, thoroughly explain how to approach and solve the problem. Simply referring to the answer key or to lecture notes is not sufficient. Explain it completely in your own words, so that there can be no doubt that you now can do the problem. This essay is the place for you to demonstrate your mastery of the material. It is not the place for you to ask me how to do the problem. Become an expert on the problem before you write this essay!
Finally, critically compare what you did to what you should have done. Identify at least one missing insight that was lacking in your original approach. Not knowing which equation to use or not memorizing the correct equation is not a missing insight. Those are signs of a more fundamental misunderstanding of the underlying principle of physics.
Include in your essay for each question:
Make sure that each essay is complete enough for me to really understand what you were thinking and why you were thinking it when you took the test. Also be sure that your description of the missing insight is complete enough to prove to me that you now really understand the correct answer and why it is correct.
If there is anything else you would like to add, please include it as well. I am especially interested in learning what you think that you could have done to have better prepared yourself for the test, and in what you think I could have done to have better prepared you for the test.
The assignment is worth forty points. Each response will be graded on a 20-point scale. Your final score will be the sum of the scores for each question.
Your response is graded on three categories: your reason for answering on the test as you did, the correct process to follow when approaching the problem, and the missing insight that should have led you to the correct answer. Responses are graded in these areas as follows:
| score | description |
|---|---|
| 7 | Clearly and completely explains how and why you obtained your answer. includes what you thought, the process you followed, and how certain you were of the correctness of your answer. |
| 6 | Clearly explains how you obtained your answer. Some aspect of a complete answer is missing: the account of your thought process may not flow, or your explanation may lack detail. |
| 5 | Explains how you obtained your answer without revealing why: the account of your thought process is not adequately detailed. |
| 4 | You don’t know why you answered as you did. |
| 3 | I could piece together your reason although it was not clearly stated. |
| 1–2 | I had difficulty understanding your reason, or how it led to your choice. |
| 0 | The test question itself is not stated. |
| score | description |
|---|---|
| 8 | Correctly, clearly, and completely describes how to obtain the proper answer. Explains the underlying physics principles correctly and in enough detail for someone unfamiliar with physics to understand. Relates the principles to the specific features of the test question. |
| 7 | Correctly, clearly, and completely describes how to obtain the proper answer. Requires the reader to understand physics principles at the level taught in this class. |
| 4–5 | Explanation is not incorrect, but is vague or incomplete. |
| 0–3 | Explanation is absent, substantially unclear, or incorrect. |
| score | description |
|---|---|
| 5 | Your missing insight is clearly stated. How it would have corrected your reasoning is explicitly explained in detail. |
| 4 | Your missing insight is stated. The explanation of how it would have corrected your reasoning lacks detail. |
| 2 | A missing insight is identified but not explained. |
| 0–1 | Explanation absent, unclear, or incorrect; or the insight itself is erroneous. |
The assignment is due in or before lecture on Tuesday, February 16.
Copyright © 2006, Richard Barrans
Revised: 8 February 2010. Maintained by Richard Barrans.
URL: http://www.barransclass.com/phys1050/hwk/S10_testrf1.html