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# Should there be more chances given for physics problems?

(Cross-posted here from the feature requests board/tag, where it wasn't getting any attention)

Alright, so, we're given three tries to get the answer for each question, physics or maths. However, three tries to answer a maths problem is a lot more than three tries to answer a physics problem. For the maths problems, we're given a fairly limited search space of 999 integers. This actually gives us a few more "tries" than physics problems do. If our workings for maths return results that are negative, non-integral or greater than 999, we can reject them immediately, whereas there are no such easy tests for physics. Careless mistakes are vastly harder to detect in physics, and much more costly. In maths, we are only given three orders of magnitude to work with; anything falling outside this scope is immediately rejected. As for physics, you could be several dozen orders of magnitude off and you wouldn't know until you put it in and lost a try. And even then your mistake wouldn't be obvious. A wrong answer in physics could mean that you're off by a difference of $$10^{-20}$$, or a factor of $$10^{20}$$.

Therefore, I propose that we be given a greater number of chances for physics problems, to reflect how much easier it is to use them up.

Note by John Khoo
3 years, 4 months ago