Favorite Test Questions

[Tim Folkerts <Tim.Folkerts@valpo.edu>]

On Tue, 10 Mar 1998 11:37:08 -0500 (EST) "Donald E. Simanek" 
<dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu> wrote:

> And if we, as teachers, give homework problems and exam questions which
> can be "successfully" done by these methods, we will not encourage
> physical thinking. We must exercise great ingenuity to structure our
> measures of accomplishment so that all of these "crutches" are blocked
> completely, so that a student simply cannot pass the course by using them.


So, who out there has some favorite questions (either for homework or 
for exams) that they would like to share?  Questions that make the 
students think rather than pick an equation from the text?

Here's one that I tried that students really struggled with, testing 
understanding of friction.



"To achieve maximum acceleration, drag racers spin their tires as they 
leave the starting line.  How does this compare with your understanding 
of static and kinetic friction?"



Most of the students blindly go ahead spouting the party line, never   
realizing this example is exactly the opposite of what the model would 
suggest. And this is after we had discussed antilock breaks.  It takes a
reasonably sharp student to recognize the dilemma, and an even  braver 
student to say that the text is wrong!  

Of course, now you have to grade an essay, rather that the math we are 
all comfortable with, but it would be good for us to see on paper what 
the students are _thinking_, not just the numbers and the equations 
they are _using_!



---   Tim Folkerts


********************************************************
Timothy J. Folkerts               Tim.Folkerts@valpo.edu
Dept. of Physics & Astronomy      219-464-6634
Valparaiso University
Valparaiso, IN  46383