Assessment (Summary)
| Component | Weight | When | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | In-class Quizzes | 15% | Weeks 4, 6, 7, 10 & 12 |
|
| 2 | Individual Viva | 15% | Throughout Week 13 |
|
| 3 | Term Test | 20% | 7 October @ 4 pm (Wednesday of Week 8) |
|
| 4 | Final Exam | 50% | 25 November @ 9 am |
|
- Quick Summary
- Instructions
- Overview
- Why is this good for you?
- What to expect during the viva session
- How to prepare effectively
- Rubric
Assessment (Viva, 15%)
- Book a slot for the viva in Week 13 using this link.
- Read the article
- Attend the viva
Di Lella, Luigi, and Carlo Rubbia. ‘The Discovery of the W and Z Particles’. In Advanced Series on Directions in High Energy Physics, vol. 23, edited by Herwig Schopper and Luigi Di Lella. World Scientific, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789814644150_0006.
As part of the assessment for this course, you will take part in a short individual viva based on the article above. This viva is an intellectual chat (over cookies and coffee) that gives you the opportunity to highlight:
- your conceptual understanding,
- your ability to reason about physics,
- your ability to integrate and extend ideas from the course to a broader context,
- your ability to communicate effectively by explaining ideas clearly in your own words.
- your conceptual understanding,
The session is open book: you may bring notes (digital devices are fine) and access the web. However, you may not use LLM tools, as this would be equivalent to consulting another person.
The viva is not about:
- memorisation or detailed technical mastery,
- detailed specifications (for example detector design details or numerical values),
- lengthy calculations or derivations.
- memorisation or detailed technical mastery,
Even if you do not plan to go into academia or research, the ability to read a document carefully and methodically to extract information is an important skill. Reading scientific articles is particularly good practice because it is intellectually demanding: these texts are designed to communicate a large amount of information in a compact and efficient way. With practice, you will learn how to identify key ideas, arguments, and assumptions quickly, and to judge whether an article is worth deeper investment in time and effort.
The viva will take place in Week 13, last approximately 10–15 minutes, and will take the form of a conversation between you and the faculty member(s). I will bring cookies!
Among the things you may be asked to do are to:
- summarise the article in your own words,
- demonstrate your understanding of key ideas and reasoning,
- draw connections to concepts discussed in the course,
- reflect on what you found interesting, challenging, or surprising.
Please do not memorise anything, and do not prepare a script or slides.
- Read the article with the goal of understanding the story, not the details. Focus on big-picture ideas, understanding and reasoning, and ask yourself what was done and why certain decisions were made.
- Work with your peers and practise explaining key ideas out loud.
- Scientific articles need not (and should not) be read from start to end in a linear fashion like a book.
- I usually start with the abstract, then skim through the figures and tables to get a quick sense of the depth and breadth of what is being discussed.
- I find it helpful to annotate directly on the article and keep short notes alongside it. This makes it much easier to return to the paper after a few days (or weeks or months), and helps future-me quickly remember what I thought was important.
- It helps to use colours and symbols consistently when annotating, so you can quickly spot different things later (unknown terminology, key claims, useful references, questions you want to ask).
- Reading a scientific article well is an iterative process. You will almost never appreciate everything in a single sitting, so give yourself ample time.
| Criterion | Outstanding | Excellent | Good | Developing | Needs Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conceptual understanding | Demonstrates a deep, integrated understanding of the main ideas; explanations are precise, flexible, and insightful. | Demonstrates a clear and coherent understanding of the main ideas; explanations are accurate and well grounded. | Demonstrates a mostly accurate understanding, with minor gaps or vague use of terminology that do not obscure the main ideas. | Shows partial or superficial understanding; key ideas are unclear, incomplete, or confused. | Shows little evidence of understanding; major misconceptions are present. |
| Reasoning and interpretation | Consistently explains why things were done and how conclusions were reached; reasoning is well justified and adapts confidently to probing questions. | Explains why things were done and how conclusions were reached; provides generally sound justifications and responds thoughtfully to follow‑up questions. | Can describe the main steps in the reasoning, but connections, justification, or depth are only partially developed. | Struggles to explain reasoning; relies mainly on description or restating procedures with little justification. | Unable to articulate reasoning; misinterprets conclusions or provides incorrect justifications. |
| Connections to the course (PC3232) | Makes rich, well‑integrated connections to multiple concepts, methods, or examples from PC3232 (e.g., lectures, tutorials, labs, or readings). | Makes clear and meaningful connections to relevant concepts or examples from PC3232. | Makes some relevant connections to PC3232, though they may be limited, brief, or not fully developed. | Connections to PC3232 are weak, vague, or only indirectly related. | No meaningful connections to PC3232 are made. |
| Communication and reflection | Communicates ideas with clarity, coherence, and confidence in their own words; reflects deeply and critically on what was learned and why it matters. | Explains ideas clearly in their own words; reflects insightfully on what was interesting, challenging, or surprising. | Communicates ideas reasonably clearly in their own words; reflection is present but tends to be brief, descriptive, or surface‑level. | Communication is unclear, disorganized, or heavily reliant on the article’s or source’s wording; reflection is minimal. | Communication is unclear or fragmented; no meaningful reflection on learning is evident. |
Please note:
- Marks are based on the overall quality of understanding and reasoning demonstrated during the conversation, not on isolated mistakes or technical detail.
- The emphasis is on understanding and reasoning, not recall.
How is this relevant to me?
Scientific publications represent milestones in a scientist’s career. They not only disseminate the research work conducted by the scientist but also helps her build a reputation within the scientific community. Publications also serve as essential stepping stones for professional advancement within academia. As a budding scientist, you need to be able to learn from reading journal articles. Further, the first step to becoming a good writer is becoming an avid and careful reader[1]. Even if you do not plan to be in academia or research, the skill to carefully and methodically read a document to extract information effectively will be useful. Type of Journal articles There are many types (e.g. original research, reviews, editorials, case reports) of journal articles. The two most important types relevant to a novice are original research articles and review articles. The former is considered a primary sources while the latter a secondary source. An original research article presents a single, unique piece of work. A review article, on the other hand, synthesises the findings from many primary sources to offer a broad overview of topic or research problem?.
| TYPE | READ IF YOU… |
|---|---|
| Original | – Want to keep up to date with a field you are familiar with. – Want specific information (such as an experimental procedure). |
| Review | – You are new to a field and want to identify the top leading researchers and relevant primary sources. – You want a broader view of a topic or research problem. |
Tips for reading articles
Term Test (20%)
Canvas MCQs (15%)
Final Exam (50%)
The final examination will be open book and will be held on 28 April 2026 at 1:00 pm.
I will share more details closer to the examination date.