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Reading Assignments - Math 141 Introductory Statistics - Fall 2015

Be sure to check back, because this may change during the semester.

All numbers indicate chapters from Intro Stats, 4th Edition by De Veaux, Velleman, and Bock

For Thursday September 3

Chapter 1. Stats Starts Here
Chapter 2. Displaying and Describing Categorical Data
Chapter 3. Displaying and Summarizing Quantitative Data

To read: All (we'll talk about the standard deviation in more detail later, so don't get bogged down in this part of Chapter 3 now)

Reading Questions

  1. A school administration collects data on the students attending the school. Which of the following are categorical? Why?
    Class Year, Grade Point Average, Whether the student has taken the SAT
  2. Consider the cells for Alive and First in the contingency Tables 2.6 and 2.7. Explain the difference between the value 9.2% in Table 2.6 and the value 28.6% in Table 2.7.
  3. Consider the histogram given in Exercise 37 of Chapter 3. Describe the distribution in a few sentences (shape, center, spread, unusual features)

Submit answers through onCourse

For Tuesday September 8

Chapter 4. Understanding and Comparing Distributions

To read: All, but you can skip the optional section on Smoothing Timeplots

Reading Questions

  1. What is the author's motivation for using boxplots, rather than histograms, in Figure 4.3 to compare the monthly data shown in the histogram in Figure 4.1?
  2. What two approaches should you definitely avoid when your data has outliers?
  3. When would you ever want to take the logarithm of your data when displaying it in a histogram?

Submit answers through onCourse

For Thursday September 10

Chapter 5. The Standard Deviation as a Ruler and the Normal Model

To read: All

Reading Questions

  1. What is the purpose of finding the z-scores of a data set?
  2. What is the difference between a parameter and a statistic?
  3. What is the purpose of a Normal probability plot?

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For Tuesday September 15

Chapter 15. Sampling Distribution Models

To read: All

Reading Questions

  1. What does each data point in a sampling distribution represent?
  2. In a couple of sentences, explain the idea of the Central Limit Theorem in your own words.
  3. What are the four assumptions and conditions for the Normal model to work well as a model of the sampling distribution of a sample proportion? (You do not need to explain these assumptions and conditions. We'll talk about them in detail in class.)

Submit answers through onCourse

For Thursday September 17

Chapter 16. Confidence Intervals for Proportions

To read: All

Reading Questions

  1. In two or three sentences, explain the idea of a confidence interval for a parameter in your own words.
  2. What does it mean to say that we are 95% confident that a proportion lies in a particular interval?

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For Tuesday September 22

Chapter 16. Confidence Intervals for Proportions

Re-read the chapter, but no Reading Questions for today.

For Thursday September 24

Chapter 17. Testing Hypotheses About Proportions

To read: All

Reading Questions

  1. What is the null hypothesis H0 of a hypothesis test?
  2. What is the alternative hypothesis HA of a hypothesis test?
  3. What does the P-value of a hypothesis test tell you about H0?

Submit answers through onCourse

For Tuesday September 29

No Reading Assignment for today.

For Thursday October 1

Exam 1 today. No Reading Assignment due.

For Tuesday October 6

Chapter 18. Inferences About Means

To read: All

Reading Questions

  1. Why do we need to use the Student's t-model for inferences about means rather than the techniques from Chapter 17?
  2. What are the two assumptions necessary to use the Student's t-model?

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For Thursday October 8

No Reading Assignment for today.

For Thursday October 15

Chapter 18. Inferences About Means

Re-read the chapter, but no Reading Questions for today.

For Tuesday October 20

Chapter 19. More About Tests and Intervals

To read: All

Reading Questions

  1. What is the significance level of a test?
  2. Why is α=0.05 often used as the level of significance?
  3. Explain the difference between a Type I and Type II error.

Submit answers through onCourse

For Thursday October 22

Chapter 20. Comparing Groups

To read: All

Reading Questions

  1. Why do we pool the samples in a two-proportion z-test but not in a two-proportion z-interval?
  2. What is the difference between a two-sample t-test and a pooled t-test?

Submit answers through onCourse

For Tuesday October 27

Chapter 20. Comparing Groups

Re-read the chapter, but no Reading Questions for today.

For Thursday October 29

Chapter 21. Paired Samples and Blocks

To read: Through Section 21.3

Reading Question

Explain the difference between a paired t-test and a two sample t-test. Give examples to explain when you would use one over the other.

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For Tuesday November 3

Chapter 24. Analysis of Variance

To read: All, but you can de-emphasize Section 24.2 and skip the section Bonferroni Multiple Comparisons

Reading Questions

  1. What is the difference between ANOVA and the two-sample t-tests from Chapter 20?
  2. Why is a test comparing population means called analysis of variance?

Submit answers through onCourse

For Thursday November 5

Chapter 24. Analysis of Variance

Re-read the chapter, but no Reading Questions for today.

For Tuesday November 10

The Big Picture. No Reading Assignment for today.

For Thursday November 12

Exam 2 today. No Reading Assignment due.

For Tuesday November 17

Chapter 6. Scatterplots, Association, and Correlation
Chapter 7. Linear Regression

To read: All, but you can skip Section 6.4 Straightening Scatterplots

Reading Questions

  1. What does the correlation coefficient r measure?
  2. What is the purpose of regression?

Submit answers through onCourse

For Thursday November 19

Chapter 8. Regression Wisdom

To read: All, but no Reading Questions for today.

Also read the two short articles Judges Replacing Conjecture With Formula for Bail and LJAF-research-summary PSA-Court posted at onCourse. They give an interesting application of regression.

For Tuesday November 24

Chapter 23. Inferences for Regression

To read: All, but you can skip Section 23.7 Logistic Regression.

Since I was late getting this posted, no reading questions for today, but reread the articles posted at onCourse for last Thursday.

For Tuesday December 1

Chapter 25. Multiple Regression

To read: All

Reading Questions

  1. How does multiple regression differ from the linear regression models we discussed in Chapters 7 & 8?
  2. What is the advantage of multiple regression over the models from Chapters 7 & 8?

Submit answers through onCourse

For Thursday December 3

Chapter 22. Comparing Counts

To read: All

Reading Question

    What does the chi-square statistic measure? Explain the idea in your own words in a couple of sentences.

Submit answers through onCourse

For Tuesday December 8

Chapter 22. Comparing Counts

Re-read the chapter, but no Reading Questions for today.

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