biopia
WestSyd-UNSW3x/week
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2008
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- 341
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- HSC
- 2009
I think you may have misinterpreted what darkchild, the physics teacher, meant.
I think what he was trying to say is that in some questions, you need a correct value as a result of correct substitutions.
E.g. if you needed to calculate the acceleration due to gravity on some distant planet and the correct answer was 2.36 m/s^2. If you put 2.3614 m.s^2, then that would be correct too (i.e. it's not about the number of decimal places). However, if through your methods (which I am not denying) you got a value of 2.24 m/s^2, I imagine you would lose a mark. Perhaps it's a bad example, but sometimes, a question calls for only one correct numerical value, not a value that is close enough.
I think what he was trying to say is that in some questions, you need a correct value as a result of correct substitutions.
E.g. if you needed to calculate the acceleration due to gravity on some distant planet and the correct answer was 2.36 m/s^2. If you put 2.3614 m.s^2, then that would be correct too (i.e. it's not about the number of decimal places). However, if through your methods (which I am not denying) you got a value of 2.24 m/s^2, I imagine you would lose a mark. Perhaps it's a bad example, but sometimes, a question calls for only one correct numerical value, not a value that is close enough.