I am a student, so the amount of questions I've had to answer in my lifetime is almost uncountable. And the only thing that annoys me more than getting those questions wrong is when they're about unusual situations.
One question on momentum, for instance, is about a toy car being hit by a pellet. What I don't understand is why they come up with these scenarios to illustrate a question. I'm here to do physics, not to be amused by the idea that someone might have devised such an experiment in the first place.
The worst offenders are those that start with very loosely related information. Another question on momentum started by stating that Neil Armstrong was dead (as if they were influenced by A Christmas Carol). After this, it talked about an event which Armstrong was involved in, followed by the actual question. At no point did you need to know his age at death to work out the answer.
At the end of the day, I'd love to ask the people who write questions why they do this. I understand that problem solving is a key skill, but these kinds of questions are more baffling than anything. And if they're going to use these stories, at least make every detail relevant and somewhat plausible.
That said, I've never seen someone fire a pellet at a toy car - but maybe that's happened before...
(I should clarify, I don't think the examples given are official exam questions - the Neil Armstrong one definitely isn't - but surely everyone writing them could be better?)
I agree. Some of these exam questions get out hand.
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