Physics entrance exams and main student problems

Abstract In the contribution we present an analysis of the main problems faced by students in the entrance exams in physics to study physics at the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University in Brno (MU). Every year, about 70 students from all over the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic are admitted to study physics and physics teaching at the Faculty of Science of MU (about a quarter of them are students from Slovak Republic). Therefore, the analysis of the results of the entrance examination in physics give a good overview of the level of physics teaching on Czech and Slovak (upper) secondary schools. (We believe that these experiences are similar elsewhere). We present here an example of a typical entrance exam assignment and process the results of solving open and closed problems from individual disciplines of secondary school physics and point out key problems leading to erroneous solutions. The assignment includes tasks from all eight basic areas of secondary school physics: Mechanics, Oscillations and waves, Thermics/thermodynamics and molecular physics, Electricity and magnetism, Optics, Physics of the microcosm, Astrophysics, Relativity. The aim of the assignment and subsequent analysis of the results of student solutions is to find out to what extent the physics education and textbooks at secondary schools contribute to the development of students physical thinking. The results of student solutions are commented for all monitored areas of secondary school physics, special attention is paid to mechanics and physics of the microcosm (disciplines from the beginning and end of secondary school studies, respectively). At the end of the paper, we comment on the possible causes of the not very great success of students in solving tasks from some areas of physics. In addition to our own experience, we also use the opinions of cooperating secondary school teachers and our first semester students.