{"id":185,"date":"2009-10-29T13:37:04","date_gmt":"2009-10-29T00:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using_words_is_ok\/"},"modified":"2009-10-29T13:37:04","modified_gmt":"2009-10-29T00:37:04","slug":"using-words-is-ok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using-words-is-ok\/","title":{"rendered":"Using words is OK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m in the thick of marking exam papers. In physics, a lot of what a student does is mathematically based, so a fair bit of any exam is going to contain calculations of things. But don&#8217;t think that it is compulsory to make your answer totally incomprehensible.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the exam answers I see from students look like the result of a twisted experiment involving Sudoku and Scrabble. Letters and numbers are strewn around the page in a fairly random manner, occasionally with an equals sign that may or may not be in the right place. Units are always conspicous by their absence. Such a scrawl is really really hard to mark. Your reasoning, in your head, might be perfect, but unless you can get it down onto the paper in a comprehensible manner it might not be getting you much credit.<\/p>\n<p>So please, put in a few well chosen words. For example,&nbsp;you can say &#8216;taking moments about point O gives&#8230;&#8217;, or &#8216;using conservation of energy we have&#8230;&#8217; rather than launching straight into the equation. Remember, if the examiner can&#8217;t work out what on earth you are doing, your chances of getting credit for it are on a par with those of&nbsp;New Zealand winning the rugby world cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m in the thick of marking exam papers. In physics, a lot of what a student does is mathematically based, so a fair bit of any exam is going to contain calculations of things. But don&#8217;t think that it is compulsory to make your answer totally incomprehensible. Many of the exam answers I see from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,18],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Using words is OK : Physics Stop<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using-words-is-ok\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Using words is OK : Physics Stop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m in the thick of marking exam papers. In physics, a lot of what a student does is mathematically based, so a fair bit of any exam is going to contain calculations of things. But don&#8217;t think that it is compulsory to make your answer totally incomprehensible. Many of the exam answers I see from [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using-words-is-ok\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Physics Stop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-29T00:37:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Marcus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Marcus\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using-words-is-ok\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using-words-is-ok\/\",\"name\":\"Using words is OK : Physics Stop\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-10-29T00:37:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-10-29T00:37:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/#\/schema\/person\/34d359280e44f926f2df12eb3e50aa22\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using-words-is-ok\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using-words-is-ok\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using-words-is-ok\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Using words is OK\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/\",\"name\":\"Physics Stop\",\"description\":\"A light-hearted look at everyday physics going on in the world, written by a physicist but intended for a general audience.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/#\/schema\/person\/34d359280e44f926f2df12eb3e50aa22\",\"name\":\"Marcus\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/author\/mtwilson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Using words is OK : Physics Stop","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/10\/29\/using-words-is-ok\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Using words is OK : Physics Stop","og_description":"I&#8217;m in the thick of marking exam papers. 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