This page is designed to provide an example of what a final assessment task would look like. The actual selected-resopnse text will be based on our findings from the free-response version of the assessment.
Before responding to the questions below, please work through the following task that was given to an introductory physics class.
Rank your level of agreement with how well the following statements capture the important physics idea(s) in the task, if given to an introductory physics class.
[ 1 ] Newton's Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
[ 2 ] If there is a net force on an object, that object will accelerate.
[ 3 ] Drawing and interpreting free-body diagrams.
Consider Student A's response to the task given in their physics class.
Rank your level of agreement with how accurately the following statements describe Student A's reasoning about the task:
They understand the direction of the forces but need support in drawing freebody diagrams.
They are thinking about how to get the bucket to start moving, but not how to keep it moving at a constant speed.
They are misidentifying the action/reaction pairs for Newton's Third Law.
Rank your level of agreement with the following physics teacher responses to Student A.
I would ask them to use a spring scale to lift a 10N weight and see if they can get it to read more than 10N.
I would ask them to draw a free-body diagram for the bucket and label the force vectors.
I would encourage them to explain their reasoning in greater detail.