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Thanks much for the help on my other questions this week. As a
token of my esteem, here's another question. -grin-<br>
<br>
We have a problem that does the following:<br>
<br>
Pick random number between 2.1 and 5.9 in .1 increments.<br>
Multiply result by 10^9.<br>
Divide result by 4.7*10^-23. Save as answer<br>
<br>
The settings, held over from this problem's original CAPA
incarnation, were 2% tolerance, 2 significant figures.<br>
<br>
One line from a particular student submission report:<br>
<br>
<table
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/">
<tbody
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/">
<tr class="even"
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/">
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top">ascheire</td>
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top">gwu</td>
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top">147820964</td>
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top">none</td>
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top">1.0e38</td>
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top">1.0E+38</td>
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top">INCORRECT</td>
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top">1126752146</td>
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top">1</td>
<td
_base_href="http://loncapa.gwu.edu/res/gwu/kmurphy5/Astronomy 2 - GWU-Produced/Homework/"
valign="top"><br>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br>
Any thoughts? One of our profs recalls that CAPA used to have a
similar problem where if the tolerance range did not cover the rounding
for sig figs, one could not possibly enter a correct answer. We then
had to either increase sig figs or change the tolerance.<br>
<br>
Any thoughts? In this case the random number was 4.8 so the
unrounded result is 1.021e36 so 1.0e36 is certainly outside the 2%
tolerance.<br>
<br>
I'm inclined to believe that we've run into this same problem. Is
this expected behavior? Should our perl script do the rounding for
us? Should I put this in as a bug?<br>
<br>
-P<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"Wait! I'm getting one of those things. You know, a headache with pictures." --Fry
--
Peter Kovac
Systems Coordinator
e: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kovac@gwu.edu">kovac@gwu.edu</a>
o: (202) 994-3811
f: (202) 994-3001
725 21st St. NW
Physics Department, GWU
Washington, DC 20052
Public key for <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kovac@gwu.edu">kovac@gwu.edu</a>
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</pre>
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