Re: Returning of tests

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

At 10:39 AM 11/1/01 -0600, James Mackey wrote:
> I ... remind them that the set of physics problems is
> essentially infinite, so that memorizing specific problems is usually a
> waste of time.

In contrast, if one were to assign a "term paper" on a topic of the
student's choosing, then one would be looking through the telescope the
wrong way.  And in the absence of strict controls, one might expect rampant
cheating:

        ... he designed a simple computer program to look for
        any common phrases and set it loose on his electronic   database of 1,500
term papers. His heart sank as his
        computer churned out one match after another.

        "It was a little more common than I hoped," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A6
38-2001May8