Cheat sheet policy at your school?

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In summary: AP test. In summary, the conversation discusses the use of cheat sheets in universities and colleges, particularly for physics courses. It is noted that some classes allow cheat sheets, while others do not. However, it is emphasized that understanding the underlying concepts is more important than memorizing formulas, and that a good instructor will focus on teaching these concepts. The conversation also discusses the difficulty of memorizing a large number of formulas and the use of cheat sheets on standardized tests. Some individuals suggest using calculus to derive formulas and solving practice problems to aid in memorization. Overall, it is important to understand the material rather than solely relying on memorization.
  • #1
physicsgal
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do universities and colleges let students use cheat sheets? right now I am taking a high school physics course and there's a good 30-50 different math formulas. i kid you not. and then with each formula, there's different variables of how to switch it around to solve for different things.

i haven't the foggiest idea how I am going to memorize a decent portion of them. if it was like 5 formulas i might have a change. but 40+ :yuck:

i can memorize concepts and the laws of what not. but not the formulas.

-Amy
 
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  • #2
A lot of college courses have open book exams. This is particularly so once one gets past the introductory classes. Not that the book will help on some of the problems thrown at you.
 
  • #3
My physics professor constantly reminds us that the most important thing to understand is concepts, not formulas and symbols. Thus, he allows us to have one side of one 3x5 note card for tests. However, if you understand the concepts well enough, you should be able to derive the equations you need for each problem from the concepts that you know.
 
  • #4
You probably only have 5-10 concepts, each of which is being expressed in a number of different formulae. Don't even -try- to memorize the formulae. Instead, work on understanding the underlying concepts. Once you fully understand them, the equations are really quite trivial to put together on paper from scratch.

Also, note that universities, in general, don't have global cheat sheet policies. Some classes would be essentially guaranteed A's if you could use a cheat sheet on the exams, while others are so difficult that a cheat sheet would barely make a difference.

- Warren
 
  • #5
It depends on the class. Some don't let you have any at all, some provide them for you, and some allow you to make your own.
 
  • #6
chroot said:
while others are so difficult that a cheat sheet would barely make a difference.

- Warren

I went to that school. The exams for which "You can bring all the books and notes you can carry" tended to be much harder than closed-book tests.

As Warren and Doom noted, it is much more important to understand the handful of concepts than to memorize the dozens of equations that fall out from those concepts. A good instructor teaches with this in mind. Knowing the underlying concepts is the only tactic that works well on tests given by good instructors. This tactic also works with lousy instructors who are overly focused on knowing formulas.

Finally, and most importantly, this tactic is the only one that sticks in. I guarantee that the person who aced a class by rote memorization will retain almost nothing. On the other hand, while the person who aced the same class by truly understanding the concepts has a good chance of retaining that knowledge for decades.
 
  • #7
I would suggest, though I am assumming that your physics class in high school is teaching you classical mechanics. So for instance, your constant acceleration equations can be derived. Theres a lot of equations but they are all related, and with some work you can get one from the others. I do not know if you know calc or not, but u can use calculus to derive them even easier. Also for instance the equations used for circular motion, can be derived from those from two-dimensional kinematic in constant acceleration by changing the variables around. So there may not be as many that you need to memorize. o to your professor and ask for help, I asure you that he doens't simply want you to memorize 40 equations and spit them back out, atleast I hope.
One other thing is that simply solving lots of problems will help you remember them, I rarely ever spend time memorizing formulas, I just use them in my homework repeatedly and get to remember them over time.
hope this helps
 
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  • #8
I had to memorize 200+ formulas for AP Physics, so feel lucky and study!
 
  • #9
physicscrap said:
I had to memorize 200+ formulas for AP Physics, so feel lucky and study!

This doesn't speak well for the AP Physics test. Bland memorization, which standardized testing seems to reward, is ephemeral knowledge. Do you remember even 10% of those memorized formulae?
 
  • #10
I think it depends on the unit and the teacher. my teachers who usually will never let us use a book would let us on certain chapters, and some teachers who are just easy with the teaching let us use them all the time
 
  • #11
physicscrap said:
I had to memorize 200+ formulas for AP Physics, so feel lucky and study!
That doesn't make sense because the AP test allows a formula sheet, so why should you even have to memorize them for the course?
 
  • #12
I never force myself to memorise something. If I need to know the formula, I will derive it from the concept. All formula can be derived or from simple definition.
 
  • #13
leon1127 said:
I never force myself to memorise something. If I need to know the formula, I will derive it from the concept. All formula can be derived or from simple definition.

That's fine, up to physics 2 or 3, maybe.

The only thing that matters is you know what your doing Miss. Amy. :smile:
 
  • #14
At my university cheat-sheets on physics tests are moderatly common. It just depends on the professor and which topic of physics you are studying. In classical mechanics we were given common solutions to differential equations on a sheet and a couple relationships that require quite abit of time to derive.

Where as in modern physics, I was allowed to bring the CRC handbook, any non-modern physics text, and as many notes as I could bring. Yeah, that still didn't help me too much.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I should also note a quote from my classical professor:

Almost everything in classical mechanics can be derived from F=ma (in a non-inertial refereance frame, with a slight addiation for non-intial referance frames).
 
  • #15
z-component said:
That doesn't make sense because the AP test allows a formula sheet, so why should you even have to memorize them for the course?

Because if you know them you don't waste precious time searching a formula sheet for a single equation.
 
  • #16
I've gotten to the point where I don't like cheat sheets - when I have them, I don't use it and the professor makes the test harder to compensate for allowing you to have it. When they don't allow it, they usually keep it much more basic or give you any specific formula you need to know in the problem (which clues you in on what you have to do a lot of the times) :)
 
  • #17
physicscrap said:
I had to memorize 200+ formulas for AP Physics, so feel lucky and study!

wot, there certainly wasn't 200+ formulas.. anyway, as one get familiar to the concept, the "formulas" pops up immediately. furthermore, there are usually at most a couple master equations that one must know, and they are usually elegantly simple (At least for intro physics), like gauss's law or F=ma.
 
  • #18
I agree with mathlete, if they allow a cheat sheet, the exams really are tough and the cheat sheet won't help you that much. Also you'll find a lot of people tend to cheat more when they are allowed to have a piece of paper infront of them. You'll see kids with whole problems written out.
 
  • #19
mr_coffee said:
You'll see kids with whole problems written out.

Why does that count as cheating? Everytime I've ever been permitted to use a cheat sheet, I was permitted to put anything at all I wanted on it, with the possible exception of microfilm.

- Warren
 
  • #20
I remember that I made it a point to not use any cheat sheets on any test I was given up through differential equations, linear algebra, and physics 3

I think I might change that or my modern physics course next semester, because I noticed that some of the formulas in thermodynamics and power in waves etc. cannot be derived easily (or they can, its just time consuming), So in other words the equtions are getting to time consuming to derive on a test, making the only other option memorization which I don't believe is a good idea.
 
  • #21
I think making a cheat sheet, whether or not you can use it, is helpful, because be writing it down and picking what is most important, you learn it. Once you take the test, the card is only there to confirm. But it's still nice. I disagree that you can derive everything from basic equations-- in less than 50 minutes with at least 4 problems. Mainly on the intro stuff, kinematics. There's no way I can derive that R=sin2theta thing in a few minutes. I obviously have never memorized it either.:)
 
  • #22
mr_coffee said:
I agree with mathlete, if they allow a cheat sheet, the exams really are tough and the cheat sheet won't help you that much. Also you'll find a lot of people tend to cheat more when they are allowed to have a piece of paper infront of them. You'll see kids with whole problems written out.
That is so true. I think cheat sheets make people lazy. Most people just jot down whatever they can without even trying to understand the concept. But small cheat sheets (like a 3x5 flashcards) are OK I think.
 
  • #23
In most of my physics classes in my college, the professors provide you with the cheat sheet.
 
  • #24
I love how so many people in here think they can just 'derive' entire forumlas on exams. Cheat sheets do NOT make you lazy. I have exams that are open book, open notes. Do you think you can derive every formula for heat transfer AND solve a long exam? No, you can't. Give me a break.
 
  • #25
Why does that count as cheating? Everytime I've ever been permitted to use a cheat sheet, I was permitted to put anything at all I wanted on it, with the possible exception of microfilm.

- Warren

I was meaning when the professor told us not to write anything but formulas, and not allowed to use words, just symbols.

The reason is, its easy to model a problem if the professor is lazy and takes problems out of the book rather than some other source just write a similar problem out, even if its incorrect you'll get partial credit unless the exam is multiple choice then I guess it wouldn't matter.
 
  • #26
Most of my classes usually allow us to bring 1 or 2 pages of notes, with whatever we want on them. They seriously don't help, though, you have to understand the concepts. The sheets are only useful to quickly look up a formula you need to apply rather than having to derive it on the spot from basic principles, but that doesn't really help you figure out how to solve the problem, it only let's you save time solving it.
 
  • #27
cyrusabdollahi said:
I love how so many people in here think they can just 'derive' entire forumlas on exams. Cheat sheets do NOT make you lazy. I have exams that are open book, open notes. Do you think you can derive every formula for heat transfer AND solve a long exam? No, you can't. Give me a break.

Haven't you noticed that the people who say they can are still in high school or in first year.

I have never taken heat transfer and I never plan too, but my girlfriend took it. I didn't hear pretty things.
 
  • #28
chroot said:
Why does that count as cheating? Everytime I've ever been permitted to use a cheat sheet, I was permitted to put anything at all I wanted on it, with the possible exception of microfilm.

- Warren

With my upcoming exams, we are allowed to print on them!

Anyways, it was suppose to be open book because the midterm was, but the final would be open book if and only if the students did well on the midterm. Lots of students did poorly! They all thought that open book makes it an automatic easy midterm!

Good god. I would have failed if I didn't have any practice or didn't know where to look, which happened to quite a few!

Wow, talk about taking things for granted to its fullest.
 
  • #29
cyrusabdollahi said:
I love how so many people in here think they can just 'derive' entire forumlas on exams. Cheat sheets do NOT make you lazy. I have exams that are open book, open notes. Do you think you can derive every formula for heat transfer AND solve a long exam? No, you can't. Give me a break.

Again I think the ebst way to get around that is to solve problems in order to study. If you spend a little bit of time reading so you knwo the concepts and a majority of time solving problems, you should be able to remember the equations and the simple derivations needed. I don't think you should know how to derive everything off the top of your head, but if you work through them on your own time, and spend time solving problems you won't need to try and memorize 200 equations the night before a test
 
  • #30
mgiddy911 said:
Again I think the ebst way to get around that is to solve problems in order to study. If you spend a little bit of time reading so you knwo the concepts and a majority of time solving problems, you should be able to remember the equations and the simple derivations needed. I don't think you should know how to derive everything off the top of your head, but if you work through them on your own time, and spend time solving problems you won't need to try and memorize 200 equations the night before a test

Like I said, maybe for physics 1, or 2. After that, nope. There are no more 'simple derivations'.
 
  • #31
cyrusabdollahi said:
Like I said, maybe for physics 1, or 2. After that, nope. There are no more 'simple derivations'.
Maybe you don't have simple derivations, but to take upper level electrodynamics and mechanics courses, for example (what I'm doing this semester), it's not hard to recall Maxwell's Equations or the Euler-Lagrange Equation if you've worked at least a minimum of problems.

Take a look at the back of Griffiths, for example. Most of what you need to solve an electrodynamics problem is right there, and those equations are all pretty basic.

I won't foolishly say there is no need for references on exams, since sometimes there is absolutely that need, but to claim that there are not "simple derivations" in advanced physics is misleading. There may not be simple derivations, but there are still simple results that should not be too hard to recall.
 

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