The task & goals
The task asks students to describe the motion of a ball tossed straight up and to describe the forces on the ball. This combines questions about motion with those related to forces, making the question hard to interpret as focused on one topic. I anticipate that most physics teachers would recognize that motion is taught before force (typically? always?) and so this builds on ideas from motion and is therefore a "force" question. It will be interesting to see educator responses.
We anticipate that students will confuse motion with force - both in direction and in magnitude.
Student responses
This student considers the rapid acceleration that causes the ball to get moving as compared to the gradual accumulation of speed/energy as the ball falls. This is a great analysis for realizing the hand must exert a force greater than the force of gravity. Their error just lies in thinking about when that force is applied -- and that this happens before the ball leaves the hand (part A).
This student has a fairly common idea -- a kind of "impetus" theory. The student thinks of force as transferred to the ball from the hand, and as something that gravity then transfers back to the ball.Â