Thanks David. These are indeed bugs. See below.
Dear Arnie
In case it helps, I am using webwork 1.9.
I
think I have figured out the problem in some of the cases. I also saw
some discussion of this kind of issue in your online discussion groups
(found by a search). Sometimes the range of values that are used to
test to check whether the solution is correct require taking a square
root or log of a negative number.
As an example, the exact answer (according to webwork) of setDiffEQ3Separable/jas7_4_5b.pg,1 with seed 370 is
-ln(e^(2*4) + (4/10) - (4/10)*e^(10*t))/4
But when this answer is entered the following message occurs:
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
error: Can't take log of -3480.73.
Error
detected evaluating student input at (0.9689999062 ) There is an error
in WeBWorK's answer to this problem, please alert your instructor.
error: Can't take log of -3480.73.
Error
detected evaluating correct adapted answer at (0.9689999062 ) There is
an error in WeBWorK's answer to this problem, please alert your
instructor.
error: Can't take log of -3480.73.
Error detected evaluating instructor answer at (0.9689999062 )
In checking if a student's function f(x) is equal to the
expected answer $ans = g(x) using the function_cmp answer evaluator
WeBWorK evaluates both functions at random points and sees if they
agree. By default function_cmp checks points in the interval (0,1). It
remarkable that most functions that appear in problems are defined
there so that a statement like &ANS(function_cmp($ans, "t"));
usually works (the "t" is listed because by default the variable is
"x"). Probably for this reason some problem authors are unaware that
sometimes they have to tell function_cmp where the function is
defined. That's the case with this problem.
Here is my correction for this problem:
################## cut here ###################################
##DESCRIPTION
## Seperable Differential Equation
##ENDDESCRIPTION
##KEYWORDS('Differential Equation', 'Seperable')
DOCUMENT(); # This should be the first executable line in the problem.
loadMacros(
PG.pl,
PGbasicmacros.pl,
PGchoicemacros.pl,
PGanswermacros.pl,
PGauxiliaryFunctions.pl
);
TEXT(&beginproblem);
$showPartialCorrectAnswers = 1;
$a = random(2,10,1);
$b = random(2,6,1);
$d = random(2,17,1);
BEGIN_TEXT
Solve the separable differential equation for (u)
[ frac{du}{dt} = e^{$b u + $a t}. ]
Use the following initial condition: ( u(0) = - $d ). $BR
(u =) { ans_rule(45) }.
END_TEXT
$ans = "-ln(e^($d*$b) + ($b/$a) - ($b/$a)*e^($a*t))/$b";
$upper_lim = (1/$a)*(ln($a) + $b*$d - ln($b)); ## $ans is defined on (0, upper_lim)
&ANS(function_cmp($ans, "t", 0, $upper_lim));
ENDDOCUMENT(); # This should be the last executable line in the problem.
########################## cut here ###########################
Notes:
(1)
Since WeBWorK knows what e is, I removed $e = exp(1) and used e rather
than $e in $ans. The original author used both e and $e in $ans which
is strange. Not a bug but now the "correct answer" looks better.
(2)
Hopefully I calculated $upper_lim correctly. I assumed but didn't check
that $ans is the solution to the diff. eqt, since you said some
students got the problem correct. I only checked that $ans is defined
on (0, $upper_lim).
(3) Instead of function_cmp($ans, "t", 0,
$upper_lim) you could also use func_cmp($ans, var => 't', limits
=> [0, $upper_lim]) which our more modern way of writing things.
[the corrected problem is now in the CVS --- akp]
random
(a,b,c) is a WeBWorK macro (so even a perl expert would not be familiar
with it) and you are correct that c is the step size. Thus $a =
random(-0.9,-0.1,1); is obviously wrong. However I think the "random"
$a would always be -0.9 in this case so I'm not sure this is why
ur_de_3_15.pg won't accept correct answers. If you know a seed that
fails, it would help us correct the problem.
It looks like some of these problems haven't been used that much. Sorry for the bugs but we appreciate the bug reports.
Arnie
The above answer is NOT correct.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
I am quite certain that it is a problem with the evaluator which I know nothing about.
%%%%%%%%%%
On my assignment the exercises with difficulties are:
setDiffEQ3Separable/ur_de_3_15.pg,1
setDiffEQ3Separable/ur_de_3_13.pg,1
setDiffEQ3Separable/jas7_4_5b.pg,1
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
On
the problem ur_de_3_15.pg, I looked at the pg file and, while I know
almost nothing about perl, I believe the problem was the following
One of the parameters is generated using
$a = random(-0.9,-0.1,1);
I am guessing that it should be something like
$a = random(-0.9,-0.1,.1);
The last number is something like a step size.
All
I know is that for some values of the parameters it works fine but for
others it won't accept the correct answer according to the formula in
webwork.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Well anyway, I certainly would appreciate any advice you can give.
Thanks in advance.
Dave Gilliam
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