• What: A comprehensive examination with special emphasis on chapters 8 and 9 and topics covered in class PLUS problems on earlier material
• When: Monday, December 18, 10:30-12:30
• Where: Olin 317
• Format: The final examination will be a closed-book examination. You may however, use the note cards you prepared for the previous exams. In addition, you may use two handout/document sheets, "Statistical Hypothesis Testing" and the document with "Statistical Inference for Means and Proportions" on one side and "Statistical Inference for Simple Linear Regression" and "Statistical Inference for One-way Analysis of Variance" on the other side, with any notes of your own written on them--and you may write on both sides. You may use your calculator. Statistical tables will also be provided for those who need them.

Topics that may be covered

• Much of the exam will focus on topics covered since the last exam.
  • Inference for a single proportion
  • Inference for two proportions
  • Inference for two-way tables: the chi-square test
• The following topics, which were merely adumbrated, may be included in a part of the exam where you have a choice of problems and/or may appear in an optional (extra-credit) problem.
  • Chi-square test for goodness of fit
  • Inference for regression
  • One-way ANOVA
• Some of the exam questions will relate to material we learned earlier.
  • Looking at data--distributions
  • Looking at data--relationships
  • Sampling and experiments
  • Probability, including random variables and their distributions, means, variances, and standard deviations
  • Sampling distributions
  • Confidence interval basics
  • Statistical hypothesis testing/tests of significance
  • Inference for the mean of a population
  • Comparing two means

Suggested study and preparation:

• Review the summaries at the end of each section of the text. Make sure that you understand and correctly use the terminology and notation of probability and statistics.
• Review homework problems and problems worked in class.
• Review old exams.
• Try some odd-numbered problems from the text.
• Be prepared to demonstrate statistical and probabilistic thinking in context.
• Be able to distinguish parameters, statistics, variables, values, etc., and denote them appropriately.
• Make notes that tell you under what conditions the formulas and procedures we have learned may be applied.
• Know how to use Table A (standard normal probabilities), Table B (random digits), Table C (binomial probabilities), Table D (critical t values), Table E (critical F values), and Table F (critical chi-square values), or be prepared to do the equivalent on your calculator.
• Be prepared to calculate and interpret confidence intervals for parameters.
• Be prepared to demonstrate your mastery of the procedure for statistical hypothesis testing/tests of significance  (Word.)  (htm.) (Caution: The .htm file changed mu to "m," sigma to "s", alpha to "a," and the inequality symbol to superscript 1.)

Last updated 12/10/06