A guiding analogy
In many interviews and open-ended exam questions, students showed a common response.
They used a particle-pulse guiding analogy (a pattern of association) that a wave crest is like a Newtonian “point particle.” The rest of the wave is ignored.
Almost all students in engineering physics used this analogy in some contexts.
Students do not “have the right answer or the wrong answer”, but have both answers at the same time.