Parallel DC Circuits Practice Worksheet With Answers

Discuss with your students what a good procedure might be for calculating the unknown values in this problem, and also how they might check their work.

Discuss with your students what a good procedure might be for calculating the unknown values in this problem, and also how they might check their work.

Rules of series and parallel circuits are very important for students to comprehend. However, a trend I have noticed in many students is the habit of memorizing rather than understanding these rules. Students will work hard to memorize the rules without really comprehending why the rules are true, and therefore often fail to recall or apply the rules properly.

An illustrative technique I have found very useful is to have students create their own example circuits in which to test these rules. Simple series and parallel circuits pose little challenge to construct, and therefore serve as excellent learning tools. What could be better, or more authoritative, than learning principles of circuits from real experiments? This is known as primary research, and it constitutes the foundation of scientific inquiry. The greatest problem you will have as an instructor is encouraging your students to take the initiative to build these demonstration circuits on their own, because they are so used to having teachers simply tell them how things work. This is a shame, and it reflects poorly on the state of modern education.