Why university examination papers easier than problems in text books?

[Quantumcom]

Well I have been reading and solving problems in physics for scientists and engineers (R.A Serway).But my examination problems are way easier than problems in the textbooks.I always expect to have challenging problems in exams like in textbooks.Why they don't make some hard problems at least one per paper?

 

[chiro]

Well I have been reading and solving problems in physics for scientists and engineers (R.A Serway).But my examination problems are way easier than problems in the textbooks.I always expect to have challenging problems in exams like in textbooks.Why they don't make some hard problems at least one per paper?

This is my experience based on math courses (I'm a math major). The teachers have told our classes that they don't expect students to solve problems that are too hard in an exam with limited time. As a result they restrict what material to test based on constraints like this.

It makes sense because assignments are usually over a one to three week period and exams last for only three hours. It doesn't really seem fair to do complex derivations or solve complex problems in the space of three hours when it might take a whole 2 hour lecture to do on the board by someone who has their doctorate.

 

[mege]

"Simple" problems on exams often limit the mistakes you can make external to the testing focus. It's also easier to grade and see that you, the student, understand the material being tested on.

If problems on an exam are too complex, then one un-related mistake early on might mask that you understand the concept of focus.

 

[qspeechc]

It's what chiro said. Difficult problems are like a lottery in terms of the time it takes you to solve them. That's why the problem sets have the difficult questions so you have plenty of time to work on them. An exam is only two or three hours, if you put difficult questions in there people will run out of time and get low marks, not because they are stupid, but because they didn't have enough time. In that sense exams are a bit artificial becuase in real life you work on one problem for days, weeks, months, years even. The difficult problems in the problem sets are where you are really examined on your ability. Exams just test that you properly understand the fundamentals and you pass the course knowing the basics at least.

 

[Choppy]

It sounds to me like you're making a generalization based on one introductory physics course.

Give it time. I'm sure you'll run into challenging exams at some point.

 

[Shaun_W]

The idea of the closed book exam is totally nonsensical anyway. Exam paper problems cannot be too difficult because you only have a limited time to solve them, and limited materials too.