How would Boro judge this? (low content)

[Nielsio]

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/foto/faf9fb82_elephant.jpg

[Ron Paul]

I would have given him extra credit if he had worked out the problem including the effects of the elephant. As it is, it seems graded appropriately.

[Silent A]

1) Give some credit for correctly formulating the two key equations
2) Deduct some marks for not showing any units
3) No forgiveness for not realizing that it would be a good idea to set the two equations equal to each other.

I mean, (s)he did most of the work and then got stuck at a fundamental point, which suggests (s)he doesn't know what (s)he's doing but has some talent for memorization and/or blindly plugging numbers into equations.

For a first year student, I'd probably give 2 or 3 marks for part (a) and 0.01 for part (b).

[MrMon]

I would take off points from the teacher for the ambiguously worded part b. That's a horrible question that only leads to confusion and bad answers.

[Prodigy54321]

I like how the kid drew a picture of an elephant, but didn't just use 9.8

that kid is a go-getter

[Ron Paul]

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I would take off points from the teacher for the ambiguously worded part b. That's a horrible question that only leads to confusion and bad answers.

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It might be poorly worded, but I don't see how it's confusing. Can you elaborate?

[Taraz]

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I would take off points from the teacher for the ambiguously worded part b. That's a horrible question that only leads to confusion and bad answers.

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It might be poorly worded, but I don't see how it's confusing. Can you elaborate?

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"Does it continue to move after it comes to rest?" seems kind of contradictory. It's either at rest or it's moving. I guess you could say there is a split second where the spring is maximally compressed and it is "at rest" but that seems a weird way of phrasing it.

[thylacine]

4/10
0/5

[Ron Paul]

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I would take off points from the teacher for the ambiguously worded part b. That's a horrible question that only leads to confusion and bad answers.

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It might be poorly worded, but I don't see how it's confusing. Can you elaborate?

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"Does it continue to move after it comes to rest?" seems kind of contradictory.

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It isn't. If the student thinks it is, it displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the concepts.

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It's either at rest or it's moving. I guess you could say there is a split second where the spring is maximally compressed and it is "at rest" but that seems a weird way of phrasing it.

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No, it isn't; that is exactly what happens. "At rest" means v=0. Sine there is a point in time at which v=0, then at that point in time, the block is at rest. After that, the block continues to move.