I loved this approach until I read the exam question. After that, I only liked it. It would have been more interesting to see an exam with question like "is t

I loved this approach until I read the exam question. After that, I only liked it. It would have been more interesting to see an exam with question like "is the population of x in hardy-weinberg equilibrium", where x is something students should know something (but not everything) about if they've been paying attention. It would be possible, but not easy, for a very well prepared student to do the research and figure it out (or at least write an intelligent answer) in an hour. Some bright students who haven't studied much probably would be able to research quickly and come up with a good answer, especially if they split up the task. Some people will clearly be vastly more valuable to teams than others. In short, I think the professor here picked a question that tilts too heavily toward collaboration. If this approach is really going to work, you need to induce some reluctance among the very well prepared, who may realize that their friends who spent more time preparing for the non-collaborative physics exam will be getting a relatively free ride. I guess I just don't think this quite brought out the nastiness that would truly arise in a state of nature - something of course I understand he'd rather avoid!