Real-World Problems
The purpose of real-world problems is to see how physics can be
used to analyze problems that may be encountered in everyday life.
Students who author their own problems have an even better opportunity
to make physics relevant to their lives.
Criteria for a good real-world problem suitable for an exam:
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Interesting and relevant to a typical student in this class; not just another
"plug-and-chug" textbook-like problem with a trivial result that makes
you say "who cares?" The statement of the problem should be phrased
in such a way that the solution has purpose and meaning.
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Requires ability to apply one or more physics concepts appropriate for
the relevant exam. The ideal problem is one that combines physics
principles from each of the chapters covered by the exam.
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Requires assumptions, estimations, or includes additional information that
is not required to solve the problem.
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Challenging yet short enough so that a well-prepared student can write
a complete solution (using GOAL) in about an hour.
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The submission of an original real-world problem must be accompanied by
a complete solution that clearly identifies the assumptions and estimations
that must be made. The problem and solution must be clearly written
(free of spellling and grammatical errors and preferably using the GOAL
protocol), and the values used in the problem must be physically plausible
(e.g. no cars going 500+ mi/hr)