While I am familiar with the FCI, every time I take it I am struck by the difficulty of the assessment despite the absence of any calculations. As I was going through the test, I was focusing on the incorrect responses and trying to think like a student that would choose one of those responses (not an easy task).
In doing this I think I understand a little better why the test is such a good challenge - for each answer choice there is a logical argument that could be made or an experience students could recall that would lead them to an incorrect response.
It seems a number of the incorrect answers are historical misconceptions - once held and (logically defended) by some great thinkers in physics (see Aristotelian ideas such as object memory and the natural state of objects).
I would think students rely as much (if not more) on personal experience as they do on logic in answering these questions. When students make a sharp turn in a car - what do they experience? They slide to the outside. When students let go of a spinning merry-go-round, what do they see? The merry-go-round gets further away. With this experience, some of the incorrect responses begin to make a lot of sense.
To me, this highlights that it is a delicate task to correct such misconceptions as they can be deep rooted in experience and/or the product of students really having spent some time thinking about what they have observed.
