Chaper Two - Readings and Problems

Home | Chapter Three

Section 2.1 Obtaining Data Histograms Bar Graphs Line Graphs Pie Charts 7,15,25

Section 2.2 Comparison Histograms Multiple Bar Graphs Multiple Line Graphs Multiple Pie Charts 1,5,11,17

Section 2.4 Scatterplots Scatterplots Variation from a Trend Correlation and Causation Formula for Regression Line 1,2,11,12,25,29

Problems - Based upon Student Profile Data

This first set of problems relates only to the data for your course section

Compute percentages of students who

• Use Excel (Excel)
• Took trig in HS (Math)
• Had math anxiety of 8, 9, or 10 (Anx)
• Think math majors are smarter than English majors (Smtr)
• Prefer open book tests (Test)
• Played poker for money (Poker)
• Hava a car loan (Loan)
• Owns stocks (Stocks)

How do you explain the fact that a large percentage of students think that English majors are just as smart as math majors, yet the liberal arts students have such low math scores and such high levels of math anxiety? Do you think that math majors have the same level of anxiety about English? How can you justify your conclusions?

Make histograms of anxiety levels and scores. For the anxieties use classes: 0-4, 5-7, 8-10. For scores use classes: 0-3, 4-7, 8-10, 11-15, 16-20.

What is the difference between histograms and bar graphs?

What is the 90th percentile of score?

Compute the percent of men and women in the class. Explain why it is a probability distribution.

Compute the Average, Median, Mode, Mean Deviation, Variance, and Standard Deviation for Anxiety (Anx) and Score (Score). What can you say about the data based upon these results?

Why did the question, "Do you still have your math textbook?" not provide and useful information?

Compute the average scores the following subsets of the data:

• Male versus female
• Played poker versus not played poker
• Have a car loan very not have a car loan
• Own stocks versus not own stocks

What differences did you notice?

Draw a bar graph of the average score by male or female.

Draw a pie chart of the majors

Make a two way table of the count of men and women who play or don't play poker. Make two similar tables showing percents of counts and average scores.

Make a scatter plot of anxiety versus score. Is anxiety a good predictor of score? What can you say about the relationship between anxiety and score? My intuition suggested that anxiety would be a good predictor of the score. Can you suggest why it is not a good predictor?

Estimate a straight line through the data on the scatter plot. What is the equation for this line? What is the slope? What is the Y intercept?

Looking at both sets of data

Make a comparison histogram between the scores of the two course sections 007 and 012. What do you observe?

Repeat the statistics done above for the second set of data. What can you say about the similarities and differences of the two math sections?

Discuss the concepts of sample and population with respect to the two sets of data.What is the population of students that these samples are drawn from?