Each exercise consists of four elements a place to record the ranking of each variation a description of the physical situation including any constraints and the basis for ranking different arrangements a set of figures showing the different arrangements of the situation to be compared. Ranking tasks are a novel type of conceptual exercise first described in the field of physics education research by david maloney 1987 and developed as physics classroom curriculum in the text . Ranking task exercises in physics are an innovative type of conceptual exercise that asks students to make comparative judgments about variations on a particular physicals situation it includes 200 exercises covering classical physics and optics