> Second of all, if we are asking the long calculation with the expectation that students won't be able to complete it, why are we asking that question? Why don

> Second of all, if we are asking the long calculation with the expectation that students won't be able to complete it, why are we asking that question? Why don't we ask shorter questions that match the expectations we have? We are asking that question, because we want to verify that the student understands the process of solving the problem. Therefore final answer is of lesser importance - what matters is proper procedure that is used to arrive to the answer. And no, shorter questions and shorter answers are not always a way to go, because some problems do require lengthy procedure to be solved. And of course you're right that in real life such calculations would be done by a computer. But that is because in real life the goal is to solve the problem, while at school the goal is to teach the student and verify that knowledge (so that in the future he will be able to create a computer able to solve such problem, metaphorically speaking). > If we are asking the long calculation because we expect students should complete it, why should they get partial credit for failing to meet that expectation? That's what you're testing them on - and they haven't truthfully shown they were better than someone who wrote nothing. They've failed at completing the task, and/or at checking their work. Again it comes down to the expectation - student should be expected to understand the problem and the solution, not to write a single number as an answer. Therefore partial solution (i.e. a procedure where some steps are invalid, but some are still valid) is better than no solution.