Science Assessment ~ Topics ~ Models ~ Item MO065004 ~ Student Performance

An architect is designing a house and shows the plans to his coworker. The coworker likes the design but tells the architect that he now needs to make a three-dimensional (3-D) model of the house before the construction company can begin building it.

The architect says that even though the plans are just drawings on paper, they can be thought of as a model of the house. The coworker disagrees and says that a model of a house has to be three-dimensional.

As they discuss it further, they agree that the plans have all the information the construction company will need to build the house, including designs for building the floors and walls, but the architect and his coworker still disagree about whether the plans can be called a model.

Which of them is correct and why?

The architect is correct because he is the one who made the plans and therefore knows whether they can be considered a model.
The architect is correct because the plans represent the features of the house that are to be built.
The coworker is correct because a model needs to be three-dimensional.
Neither is correct because the house has not yet been built, and there cannot be a model of something that does not exist.

Distribution of responses
Answer Choice	Overall	Grades		Gender		Primary Language
	n = 3109	6–8 n = 1900	9–12 n = 1209	Male n = 1495	Female n = 1558	English n = 2793	Other n = 257
A.	15%	15%	14%	17%	13%	14%	18%
B.	49%	48%	49%	45%	52%	49%	39%
C.	25%	24%	27%	26%	25%	25%	30%
D.	11%	13%	9%	13%	10%	11%	13%

Science Assessment

Item MO065004: An architect does not need to create a 3D model of his house design if his 2D plans show everything that is needed in order to build the house.