Physics Sensei questions & answers
Why Do I Do Well on Homework but Badly on Exams?
Your homework grade looks great. Nineties, week after week. Then the exam comes back with a 60. It feels like two different students took those two grades.
You start to wonder if you just freeze on tests. Or if the exam was unfair.
If you do well on homework but badly on exams, there’s usually a simpler reason. Your homework score is telling you a story that isn’t quite true, and nobody shows you how to read it.
What’s really going on
Your homework score includes a lot of help. Several tries per problem. Hints. Your notes open. A friend, a video, and all the time you want. Every one of those helps you get the point, and every point counts the same.
The exam gives you one try and no help. So the homework score measures what you can do with help. The exam measures what you can do alone.
The number that matters is your first-try score: how many problems you got right on the first try, by yourself.
Why it gets worse
A high homework score tells you you’re ready. So you study the same way for the exam, or even a little less. Why fix what’s working?
But the first-try score was the real forecast all along. The homework score just never showed it to you.
Why it’s hard to change
Using extra tries and hints is allowed. It’s even smart, because it raises your grade. Giving them up feels like throwing points away.
The good news: you don’t have to give them up. Keep using them for your grade. Just write down your first try before you use any help. That one habit shows you the truth.
The fix: keep score of your first try
You don’t need to change your homework. You need one more number: the first-try score. It shows you how ready you really are, and which problems to practice.
Try this on your next homework: the first-try score
- Work each problem on paper first. No notes, no hints, no friends.
- Enter that first answer. Write a check if it was right on the first try. Write an X if you needed another try, a hint, or your notes.
- Now use all the help you want to finish the homework for your grade.
- Count your checks. Checks divided by problems is your first-try score. That’s your exam forecast.
- Every X goes on a redo list. Two days later, redo those problems on paper, first try, no help.
The homework grade still counts. The first-try score is what tells you what to study.
What changes
Your first first-try score might be low. That’s not bad news. It’s honest news, and now you know where to look.
Each week, the redo list gets shorter and the first-try score climbs. When it climbs, your exam scores follow, because the exam is just one long first try.
Your first try is your exam. Practice it.
Practice problems built for this
On Physics Sensei, every problem is solved step by step, and each one asks you to try it first. When you type your first answer, you find out right away if it’s right, and if not, exactly where you slipped. Then it gives you one more like it, with new numbers, so you get a second first try.
Your next step: on your next homework, write down your first-try score. Then take one X from your redo list and practice a problem like it on Physics Sensei.
More questions about studying and grades? See them all here.
Raul, Physics Sensei
