Re: [Phys-L] Evaluation tests

[Philip Keller <pkeller@holmdelschools.org>]

I thought of it as a sports fan: a team that has a record of 25 and 2 has a
better winning percentage than one which has fewer wins and the same two
losses.

On Tuesday, December 17, 2013, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:

> I am curious how the people on this list came to the answer - it might
> help in knowing how we would want our students to come to the answer  -
> i.e., how to think as physicists.
>
> I read BC's approach  - I would be thrilled if my non-science majors could
> think in that fashion. I had a slightly different approach - I never
> actually thought about the numbers per se. I envisioned a line divided into
> 27 parts and one divided into 17 parts. I could "see" that 25 parts were
> closer to the right end of the line than 15 parts - it was all purely
> visual - no deliberate use of formal logic.
>
> Do we as physicists intuit answers or do we formally apply critical
> thinking?
>
> Bob at PC
> ________________________________________
> From: Phys-l [phys-l-bounces@phys-l.org <javascript:;>] on behalf of John
> Denker [jsd@av8n.com <javascript:;>]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2013 12:14 PM
> To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
> Subject: Re: [Phys-L] Evaluation tests
>
> On 12/17/2013 09:44 AM, Robert Cohen wrote:
> > For a simpler question, how about 5/7 vs. 7/9?
>
> OTOH one could argue that it would simplify the task to
> ask which is larger, 12345/12347 versus 23457/23459.
>
> That makes it more obvious that it is a logic problem not
> a simple division problem, and increases the value of the
> devious solution relative to the brute-force solution.
>
> > It really doesn't matter as long as you talk to the student and ask
> > how he/she approached the problem.
>
> There are lots of questions in that category, questions
> that work fine one-on-one but are less reliable and more
> difficult to interpret in a mass-production written-test
> environment.
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