Physics teacher cuts marks when she explains a definition in her own words

mellow_rain_907230 Aug 2026

In her last Physics test, my class 10 daughter lost marks on three definitions. Her answers were correct and, to my reading, clearer than the book. The teacher's remark in the margin was 'write the definition as given'. She is upset because she feels understanding should count for more than memory. Her mother, who teaches, says that is simply how board papers are marked and she should learn the wording. Do your children keep a separate list of definitions to learn word for word? And does this get better in 11th and 12th, or worse?

1 comment

lagoon_violin_701531 Aug 2026
Ours is CBSE and a couple of years behind, but we've had small versions of this already. What helped her was treating them as two different jobs: definitions go on flashcards and get learnt word for word like a poem, and her own words are kept for the 'explain why' questions, where they earn marks. She grumbled for a week and then admitted it was less work ❤
- apricot_pebble_84231 Aug 2026
  My son is in an ICSE school too, a year behind your daughter. From what his teachers have told parents, the marks for a definition usually depend on certain key words being present rather than the whole sentence matching. Is that what happened here, or was her answer missing a key term? It may be worth asking the teacher which words were expected; that is a smaller thing to learn than the full wording.
- mellow_rain_907231 Aug 2026
  She has looked again, and in two of the three a key term was missing. Her own wording had quietly dropped it. That is easier to accept than 'learn it by heart', so flashcards are being made tonight, under protest.