Statistical Skills Assessment

Statistical Skills Assessment Statistical Skills Assessment NAME: NOTE: Do NOT put your name anywhere except for this page!

2 Statistical Skills Assessment 1. A class survey asked students to indicate if they are MAC or PC users. Of the following graphs, which is most appropriate to display their results? (a) Pie chart (b) Histogram (c) Scatterplot (d) None of the above 2. The dean of a college would like to know if IQ scores differ for students on academic probation versus students who are not on academic probation. The data he collected is listed below. Of the following graphs, which is the most appropriate to display this data? Probation GPAs Non-Probation GPAs 3.2 3.4 2.0 3.3 2.5 3.2 3.0 3.5 2.8 3.0 (a) Scatterplot (b) Histogram (c) Two bar charts (d) Side-by-side boxplots 3. A class survey asks students to indicate how long it takes them to travel from campus to home. Of the following, which is the most appropriate summary for the data? (b) Mode and range

3 Statistical Skills Assessment 4. A class survey gathered the following data. Of the following, which is the most appropriate summary for the data? Education Level of Parent Number of Responses Less than high school 4 High school graduate 12 Some college 7 Associate degree 3 Bachelor s degree 8 Advanced degree 2 (b) Mode and range Items 5 and 6 refer to the following situation: The admissions office at a small college would like to know if scores on an entrance exam help predict a student s performance in college (measured by their GPA after one semester). The results for a small sample are listed in the table below. Student Exam Score GPA 1 76 3.0 2 88 3.2 3 65 2.5 4 74 2.6 5 56 2.7 6 92 3.4 5. What is an appropriate summary for the data to answer the admissions office s question? (b) Median and interquartile range 6. Of the following, which is the most appropriate way to display the results? (a) Histogram (b) Scatterplot (c) Stem-and-leaf plot (d) Side-by-side boxplots

4 Statistical Skills Assessment Items 7 and 8 refer to the following situation: A state police officer records the speed of several cars on a particular stretch of highway. The following is the dataset obtained, where Car Number indicates which car was observed and Speed indicates the speed of the car as recorded by a radar gun. Car Number Speed 1 60 2 62 3 56 4 60 5 66 6 59 7 61 8 119 7. Of the following, which is the most appropriate way to display the results? (a) Boxplot (b) Scatterplot (c) Pie chart (d) Side-by-side boxplots 8. What is an appropriate summary for this dataset? (b) Median and interquartile range Items 9 through 12 refer to the following situation: In studies of employment discrimination, several variables are often relevant: an employee s age, sex, race, years of experience, salary, whether promoted, and whether laid off. For each question, select the appropriate classification of explanatory and response variables. 9. Are men paid more than women?

5 Statistical Skills Assessment 10. Can an employee s age help us predict whether or not he or she will be laid off? 11. For every additional year of experience, about how much higher is a worker s salary? 12. Are whites more likely than blacks to be promoted? Items 13 through 16 refer to the following situation: For each research situation, decide what statistical procedure would most likely be used to answer the research question posed. Assume all assumptions have been met for using the procedure. 13. Do students IQ scores help to predict how well they will perform on a test of science achievement?

6 Statistical Skills Assessment 14. Is ethnicity related to political party affiliation (Republican, Democrat, Other)? 15. Are typical blood pressure readings the same for groups of patients who have been assigned to take one of four possible medications? 16. In sets of boy-girl twins, do the boys differ from their sisters in reading achievement?