20140329

Online reading assignment question: confusing Midterm 1 physics topics

Physics 205B, spring semester 2014
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

"20140329-confusing"
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Wordle.net tag cloud for confusing topics covered in Midterm 1, generated by responses from Physics 205B students at Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA (http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/7700707/Untitled).

Students have a weekly online reading assignment (hosted by SurveyMonkey.com), where they answer questions based on reading their textbook, material covered in previous lectures, opinion questions, and/or asking (anonymous) questions or making (anonymous) comments. Full credit is given for completing the online reading assignment before next week's lecture, regardless if whether their answers are correct/incorrect. Selected results/questions/comments are addressed by the instructor at the start of the following lecture.

List at least five words describing confusing subjects covered in class (up through this midterm). (Graded for completion.)

Describe your most confusing subject, and briefly explain why this subject interested you. (Graded for completion.)


The following are all of the student responses, verbatim and unedited.
"I really just can't get the hang of two lens systems. It just hasn't clicked yet, but hopefully by sometime tonight it will"

"I really don't like the electric fields. I have a lot of confusion about the different variables and what they are."

"The difference between refraction and reflection."

"I had most trouble with the thin lens equations and diopters. I wasn't exactly sure how to relate them and use them when given a certain situation."

"Maybe I was daydreaming in class that day, but I really have a hard time with frequencies"

"Fields!! Ahhhhh!!!"

"The maxima/minima were the most confusing because I was sick so I missed that class. I also feel like for every problem we use 1 as the maxima/minima so I don't see the point. But that's probably because I was not in class."

"I struggled with charges of electrons"

"I got really confused with single-slit and double-slit material. Although I can see when they are being used in life situations, it wasn't something I was more easily able to comprehend and grasp. I have to say though, the lab was very interesting and helpful."

"i am very confused still on how to figure out whether a charge is going to be positive or negative."

"I suppose that some of the things involving thin-lens equations and the signs of different variables is a bit annoying. I'm not fond of just memorizing things."

"I was confused, up to the last quiz, about if electrons actually transfer from object to object."

"Like in the ball and rod example. Maybe I missed or can't remember it, and although I understood how to do the problems, I never really "got" wave diffraction. Never really understood the bigger picture or its application, besides measuring distances between tracks on a DVD."

"I found the lenses to be confusing because I have difficulty understanding how changing certain quantities will change the image."

"The most confusing subject was the single and double slit portion of the chapters. I was not able to fully understand how the double slit and single slit equations worked or why they worked the way they did. it just did not make sense to me"

"i don't get how constructive and destructive lenses work"

"Electric fields and how they relate to the electric potential and electric potential energy. These just seem to overlap and sound so similar that I get confused what is happening and what is causing each phenomenon."

"The most confusing subject covered in this midterm for myself had to deal with converging and diverging lenses and the images they produced as virtual vs real and upright or inverted. This was personally confusing because I did not fully understand what was going on and how an image can be upright or inverted and if it was real or virtual."

"The different conditions of the eye. I can never keep them straight."

"Think the most confused I have been thus far was during our continued discussion of resistors and circuits. Coming in at a close second would have to be differentiating between real and virtual images when viewed through a lens. I don't know, I guess I just can't seperate this from that in terms of characteristics that determine whether the image is real or virtual."

"The single slit/double slit material is the most confusing for me, I think because I missed the class that covered it. :("

"Electric fields and circuits are confusing to me. I have a harder time relating them to things that are relevant or interesting to me in my everyday life."

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