Final Exam Free Response #2 Rubric

 

The attched document defends the claim that 13.93 out of 15 points of the Free Response Question 2 on the 2020 final were predictable Gift Points.

 

Please note: I haven't graded any student responses yet. I don't know what scores any individuals got. I'm pointing out what points any person could get with little test-time effort. The "any person" here means someone who did their reading and learned the terminology.

 

There's no statement here telling a person what they're supposed to earn. The rubric simply says things like "these two particular points were gift points" mainly because I either told people it was coming or some other such thing that only requires eyes be open. I'm not going to say, "You have to take the gifts." However, I do say, "This is how points are awarded in this course. The choice is yours." People who don't know they've had this choice have had their eyes closed to certain things.

 

I'll make another such rubric and Gift Point claim for Free Response 3 and post it as soon as I can. The Gift Point count on Free Response 3 will not be as high as 13.93 out of 15. One who reads the rubrics could easily see why.

 

FR2 has all but one raw point as freebie, because I told people exactly what they'd be tested on for #2, and I told them months ago, and then I told them again more recently with examples from old tests. People who don't take the gift points but claim they want to are people who make communication errors, not physics errors. I can point out such errors. I can't tell people what to do, so this isn't criticism. It's mere facts. And remember, I state this still without grading student responses from this year yet. So in these statements, I'm being as objective as I possibly can.

 

Semester 2 will continue to have gift points that are vocabulary and reading dependent, and more so, because the terminology will relate to electrical quantities which can't be seen with the naked eye, unlike this past semester.

 

It's also worth noting that life's too short and difficult to make academic tests be anything but simple. Why would the test writer ever intend to make them complicated? In any instants where after the test a test-taker reports a test item as complex or time-consuming, they are in all cases erroneously characterizing the items as complex or time-consuming in places where they're not. Any person can be aware of the point-scoring game that is inherent to any test, and that's why I point out the gift points.

 

Electric field and Electric Potential will be a topic in Semester 2 whose test grades will either be close to 100% per individual or very low per individual with little middle ground, and I never apply any AP scaling to it, because it's not timed. (The scores go into the gradebook as raw score and 85% is an A, 70% is a B, and so on.) This isn't a threat to create motivation. It's a topic whose skills come directly out of reading and practice, and students either do it or don't. It will be inappropriate to claim that the 100%-earners did so because they're smart. That particular test will be entirely full of predictable skills to apply. I tell the class in advance.