Reflective Mental Overseer Question:
- What physical situation or process is depicted in the problem ?
Examples:
  A boy applies a torque to open a door.
  Two blocks collide and stick together.
  Water flows through a constriction in a pipe.
  Gas is compressed in a cylinder.

Action:
- Make a schematic sketch of the process described in the problem.
Example:
 A ball is thrown at an unknown downwards angle from the top of a building at a speed of 46.0 m/s. The ball is observed to hit the ground 15.0 m from the base of the building, .420 seconds after it is launched.

(A) At what angle relative to the face of the building was the ball thrown ?
(B) How high is the building ?
(C) At what speed and direction did the ball hit the ground ?

Comment:
- "One sketch is worth a thousand words." Making a sketch is one of the most important organizational aids you can use to cast the verbal statement of a problem into a visual structure that can summarize all the relevant information needed to solve the problem.

- Sketches do not have to be elaborate pictures. Objects only need to be simple symbolic representations - the simpler the better. My sketches are often too elaborate because I have access to a computer drawing program. In a "real" problem, I would have represented the building by a simple rectangle.