Welcome to the STAtistics Zone

(AP Statistics, Period B)
Web address shortcut for this page: www.modd.net/45stat

Are you nervous when you see NCWEE? concerned when you see CIRC? perturbed when you see PBC? Visit Mr. Hansen’s fabled abbreviations page to make sense of those cryptic markings you see on your papers.

 

Schedule at a Glance (see archives for older entries)
Written assignments should follow the HW guidelines.

 

T 5/17/05

Field Trip to the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD. Depart 8:00 a.m., return to campus approx. 12:35 p.m., well in advance of the Mother/Son Luncheon at 1:30 p.m. You will be excused from A through E period classes if you attend. If you do not attend, you must answer the following question:

A histogram of lunch skipping (i.e., unexcused absences) for the 2004-05 academic year is approximately bell-shaped with mean of 23 and s.d. of 17. I hypothesize that the distribution is in fact N(23, 17). To this end, I gather an SRS of 23 days and observe that on 3 days there were 10 or fewer unexcused absences, on 11 days there were 23 or fewer, and on 15 days there were 33 or fewer. Although adequate information has been provided here, you will need to deduce some facts. Is there evidence to refute my claim that the true distribution is N(23, 17)? Give a complete writeup showing work, plus full statistical test procedures.

 

W 5/18/05

Ninth Shot at the Must-Pass Quiz. There is also HW due by the start of class for anyone who did not attend yesterday’s field trip. (See question posed in yesterday’s calendar entry.)

 

Th 5/19/05

Optional Group Presentations. If you wish to form a group to do a group project (2 or 3 people), please let me know with as much advance notice as possible.

 

F 5/20/05

Last day of class.

 

M 5/23/05

Final Exam, Room S, 8:00 a.m. Bring calculator, spare batteries, and several sharpened pencils.

“Required” Situation: The final exam is required for students whose second semester average is below 80% (B). I will contact those people to let them know that their attendance is required. The exam will count as 20% of the semester average.

“Optional” Situation: If you wish to take the exam as a way of boosting your grade, you must let me know by midnight on Sunday, May 22, so that I know how many additional copies to make. (In that case, I will count the exam score only if it helps your average.)

 

 

Essential Links:
-- College Board: AP Statistics Course Description
-- Our textbook’s site has online quizzes and some useful links
-- RVLS (Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics): One of the best sites anywhere for statistics! Here you’ll find a complete college statistics course (complete with clickable glossary and great case studies), simulations, and some excellent analysis tools.
-- Virtual Laboratories in Probability and Statistics (University of Alabama at Huntsville)
-- StatCrunch 3.0 (formerly WebStat): An on-line statistical computing package (requires Java)
-- How to study statistics (written by a professor at the University of Central Florida, but the ideas are valid for our class)
-- Eric Weisstein’s World of Mathematics: a monstrously huge hyperlinked reference

TI-83 Links:
--
CINT (converts confidence interval from interval notation to the more convenient “estimate ± m.o.e.” format)
-- INVT (inverse t) program written by Mr. Hansen and the Class of 1999
-- CHISQGOF (Chi-Square Goodness of Fit) program also written by Mr. Hansen and the Class of 1999
-- CSDELUXE (Chi-Square Deluxe): combines CHISQGOF and STAT TESTS C into one package; written by Mr. Hansen for the Class of 2003
-- Modifications to SCATRBOX program so that it returns the LSRL equation at the end (follow-on to a stat teacher workshop I attended on 12/5/2001)
-- David Pachner’s statistical test and confidence interval files for the TI-83 (added 4/16/2001; not reviewed by Mr. Hansen for accuracy)
-- TI-83 programs from Texas Instruments

Philosophical Links:
-- In praise of Bayes: a very readable overview of the tension between the standard (“frequentist”) approach to probability and the Bayesian view

Controversial Links:
-- Does an elite college really pay? Article addresses the issue of whether you would do better financially if you simply invested the difference in tuition price.

Fun Links:
-- Least squares regression game (requires Java): After the Java applet loads, click the “?” icon in lower right corner for instructions.
-- Guessing correlation coefficients by eye
-- Another correlation game (takes longer to load, but allows you to achieve fame if you score in the top 20 worldwide)
-- Photos from our 5/20/99 field trip to the National Cryptologic Museum at the NSA
-- Huge Internet gallery of statistics jokes (warning: many are excellent, but some are dangerously lame)
-- Average age at death for rock stars is 36.9 (vs. 75.8 for the overall population). . . this site is religiously oriented (and apparently sincere), but the reasoning process is seriously flawed. Can you find the problem?
-- Chance Database Welcome Page (this is the link cited in the 4/4/99 Washington Post Unconventional Wiz column)
-- Accident statistics (the taxicab problem)
-- Psychological probability quiz
-- Marilyn is Wrong! (a truly great site, even though it doesn’t seem to include Dr. Morse’s response to Marilyn yet)
-- Male sweat may be good for women’s health (a scholarly article with p- and t-values)
-- Lying with statistics
-- One of the biggest marketing blunders of all time: the New Coke fiasco
-- More fun links on Mr. Hansen’s home page

Serious Links (click here)

Extra Credit (4/15/2005 due date):
-- Please speak to me if you wish to enter the ASA (American Statistical Association) poster or project competition

Group Projects (1998 onward):
Exploratory Data Analysis
-- Assignment (2004-05)
-- Results (1998-99)
-- Results (1999-2000)
-- Results (2000-01)
Opinion Survey
-- Assignment (2000-01)
-- Results (1999-2000)
-- Results (2000-01)
Experimental Design and Execution
-- Assignment (2000-01)
-- Results (1998-99)
-- Results (2000-01)
Pairs Project on How to Lie With Statistics and P-value Calculations
-- Assignment (2000-01)
-- List of Partners (2000-01)
Critique of a Scientific Article
-- Assignment
AP Review
-- D period (1998-99)
-- F period (1998-99)

Test #1 (Chapters 1-2 plus §3.1 of new textbook), Sept. 2000:
-- Test #1

Old Test #1 (Introduction through Section 2.2 of old textbook):
--
Study guide
-- Test #1D--has a residual plot question not found in the F period version
-- Test #1F

Test #2, Oct. 1998:
-- Mr. Hansen’s study guide
-- Eric Love’s study guide (1/12/1999 revised version)
-- Test #2 (merged version, with comments)

Test #3 (Chapter 5) for 1999-2000
-- Answers to practice test (the practice test was handed out in hard copy form on 11/15/1999)
-- Take-home portion distributed 11/16/1999, due 11/17/1999

Old Test #3 (Chapter 4 of old textbook):
-- Study guide
-- Test #3 (merged version)
-- Answer key

Test #4 (Sections 5.1, 5.2, 6.1 of old textbook):
-- Study guide
-- Test #4D
-- Test #4F

Test #4 (Chapters 7 and 8 of new textbook: random variables, binomial & geometric distributions):
-- Actual test, 1/29/2004

Test #5 (Sections 6.2, 6.3, 7.1 of old textbook):
-- Study guide
-- Practice test
-- Answer key for practice test (incl. correction to #18 suggested by C. Muller)
-- Test #5 (merged version)

Test #5 (Sections 7.2 through 9.1 of new textbook):
-- Actual test, 2/6/2002

Test #6 (Sections 7.1-7.3 of old textbook):
-- Practice test
-- Answer key for practice test
-- Test #6D, with answer key

Test #6 (Chapters 9 and 10 of new textbook):
-- Actual test, 3/7/2002

Test #7 (Sections 8.1-8.3 of old textbook, plus Chi-Square GOF):
-- Answer key for sample test problems
-- In-class portion
-- Take-home portion

Test #8 (Section 9.1 of old textbook, plus Geometric Probability Distributions):
-- Take-home test due Wednesday 4/28/1999
-- Answer key (not yet released)

AP Exam Review
-- Real sample AP questions from the College Board
-- TI-83 Function Summary
-- TI-83 STAT TESTS Summary
-- LSRL Top Ten
-- Normal vs. Binomial: What are the hallmarks and differences? (Includes many example problems, with solutions.)
-- Formula sheet markup guide

Question of the day: 12/15/1998

Preview of quiz for Wednesday, 11/18/1998


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Last updated: 17 May 2005