## Forum archive 2000-2006

### Zbigniew Fiedorowicz - bug in function_cmp_up_to_constant

by Arnold Pizer -
Number of replies: 0
 bug in function_cmp_up_to_constant topic started 4/13/2001; 10:01:46 AMlast post 4/16/2001; 8:08:55 AM
 Zbigniew Fiedorowicz - bug in function_cmp_up_to_constant  4/13/2001; 10:01:46 AM (reads: 1773, responses: 5) Arnie and Mike, This is definitely a bug in function_cmp_up_to_constant() &ANS(function_cmp_up_to_constant($answer,"u")); will accept any answer at all as correct. This seems to be particular to using u as the variable. Zig <| Post or View Comments |>  Michael Gage - Re: bug in function_cmp_up_to_constant 4/14/2001; 12:53:54 AM (reads: 2072, responses: 0) &ANS(function_cmp_up_to_constant("-u**($m+1)/$b","u"));where$m = 8 and $b =$a*($m+1) = 36. I figured the problem was that the differencebetween -u^9/36 and -u^9/32 was below the default floating point tolerance,so I changed it to:&ANS(function_cmp_up_to_constant("-u**($m+1)/\$b","u",.999999,1.000001,0.001));No luck: WeBWorK still thinks -u^9/32 is OK. Hi Zig, I have tried these variations using a correct answer of u^9/36 and an entered answer of u^9/32: ANS( fun_cmp("-(u**(9))/36+c",var=>'u',params=>'c',domain=>[.9999,1.0001],reltol=>.001) ); rejects u^9/32ANS( function_cmp_up_to_constant("-(u**(9))/36","u",.9999999,1.000001, 0.001) );accepts u^9/32ANS( function_cmp_up_to_constant("-(u**(9))/36","u",.9999999,1.000001, 0.001) ); accepts u^9/32ANS( fun_cmp("-(u**(9))/36+c",var=>'u',params=>'c',domain=>[.9999,1.0001],reltol=>.001) ); rejects u^9/32better results:ANS( fun_cmp("-(u**(9))/36+c",var=>'u',params=>'c',domain=>[0,5.0001],reltol=>.001) ); rejects u^9/32ANS( function_cmp_up_to_constant("-(u**(9))/36","u", 0, 5, 0.001) ); rejects u^9/32 and get these answers:Answer 6 entered:--> u^9/32 <-- Incorrect. Correct answer: -(u**(9))/36+cAnswer 7 entered:--> u^9/32 <-- Correct. Correct answer: ( -(u**(9))/36 ) + QAnswer 8 entered:--> u^9/32 <-- Correct. Correct answer: ( -(u**(9))/36 ) + QAnswer 9 entered:--> u^9/32 <-- Incorrect. Correct answer: -(u**(9))/36+cAnswer 10 entered:--> u^9/32 <-- Incorrect. Correct answer: -(u**(9))/36+cAnswer 11 entered:--> u^9/32 <-- Incorrect. Correct answer: ( -(u**(9))/36 ) + Q I haven't yet been able to reproduce any difference in using u or t as the variable. I haven't figured out what the difference in the preparation of the function is between the two versions fun_cmp and function_cmp_up_to_constant. Both are using the same "back end" and are just handling the initializations differently. I thought that perhaps function_cmp_up... wasn't initializing the relative tolerance mode, but that doesn't seem to be the problem from looking at the code. For new problems at least you may find it more convenient to use fun_cmp which is documented at http://webwork.math.rochester.edu/docs/manpages/fun_cmp.html since it gives more explicit control. The debug option is also handy to see what is going on numerically, although it's output is a bit confusing at first. In any case, I'm pretty sure that this is a tolerance issue. Among other things, relative tolerance is a little problematic on a function whose answer is only determined up to a constant. The most serious problem, however, is that restricting the range of choices to be very close to 1 is self-defeating since the evaluator first samples the student's function and calculates a constant for the professor's function which makes it a close fit for the student's function. Then more points are sampled to see how close this fit is. If all the points are close together the fit is likely to be quite good. A better strategy is to widen the domain on which the points are sampled say to [0,5] that seems to solve the problem with both. Take care, Mike <| Post or View Comments |>

 Zbigniew Fiedorowicz - Re: bug in function_cmp_up_to_constant  4/15/2001; 9:44:52 AM (reads: 2073, responses: 0) Hi Mike, You are of course right that my restricting the comparison domain to a small interval made matters worse. Howevever I still maintain that function_cmp_up_to_constant()'s discrimination of incorrect answers is so poor, that it can only be described as buggy. Here are some examples: function_cmp_up_to_constant("-x^9/36") accepts the following answers as correct: -x^9/20, -x^8/30, -x^7/36, -x^6/36, 1234567 function_cmp_up_to_constant("-x^2/36") accepts -x^2/34 as correct. Calculus students are generally not prone to complain about incorrect answers being accepted as correct, so it is hard to tell how often this occurs in practice. Zig <| Post or View Comments |>

 Zbigniew Fiedorowicz - Re: bug in function_cmp_up_to_constant  4/15/2001; 2:05:55 PM (reads: 2072, responses: 0) Hi Mike, I just logged into your current Math 142 Calculus 2 course at Rochester as practice3 and started doing Problem Set 6. I entered 123456 as the answer to Problem 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 11 and this was accepted as correct. This was 8 out of 12 problems and 8 out of 9 indefinite integral problems. Surely this is unacceptable. At some point some student is bound to stumble onto this and it will spread over the grapevine that 123456 is Open Sesame for indefinite integration problems in WeBWorK. The algorithm behind function_cmp_up_to_constant() has to be rethought. Perhaps there is no good way of doing function_cmp_up_to_constant() or perhaps indefinite integration problems should be written by expert numerical analysts? Zig <| Post or View Comments |>

 Zbigniew Fiedorowicz - Re: bug in function_cmp_up_to_constant  4/15/2001; 2:34:25 PM (reads: 2212, responses: 0) Hi Mike, Just a followup to my previous message. I tried Math 142 Set 6 also as practice1, practice2, and practice4 and got the same results as with practice3, with one exception. WeBWorK would not accept 123456 as the correct answer to problem 11 for practice4. After a little bit of experimentation though, I found that 9876543 would work. Zig <| Post or View Comments |>

 Zbigniew Fiedorowicz - Re: bug in function_cmp_up_to_constant  4/16/2001; 8:08:55 AM (reads: 2101, responses: 0) Hi Arnie and Mike, I also found the PGanswerMacros.pl.original version of of function_cmp_up_to_constant() to be vastly more reliable than the current 1.6 version. I tested it on the problem function_cmp_up_to_constant("-x^9/36") which was the subject of the student complaint with a variety of seeds. Unlike the current version which accepts such off the wall answers as -x^9/20, -x^8/30, -x^7/36, -x^6/36, 1234567 (for most values of randseed), the old version always rejected these and also such comparatively tame wrong answers like -x^9/35, -x^9/37, etc. It is enough to convince me to switch back to the old version in current classes at OSU. Zig  > >Hi Mike and Zig, > >I just tried this with PGanswerMacros.pl.original (which is the old version >of the macros that we shipped with the new version of WeBWorK) and 123456 >does not work for any problem in Math 142, set 6 except problem 10. I found >the fact that it worked for problem 10 very disconcerting until I looked at >problem 10 which is a definite integral but who ever wrote it used >function_cmp_up_to_constant() for the answer so we can not blame >function_cmp_up_to_constant() for that. > >Zig, try switching to the old version PGanswerMacros.pl in a test course >and see if you still experience problems. > >Arnie > <| Post or View Comments |>