Instructions
You will need to bring a number 2 pencil for the Scantron. Scantron sheets will be provided. The midterm will be a total of \(15\) questions giving approximately \(5\) minutes to spend per question. There will be \(2\) short answer questions similar to quiz questions and \(13\) multiple choice questions. The midterm will cover the content from the book sections:
- 1.1 - 1.3
- 2.1 - 2.4
- 3.1 - 3.3
- 4.1 - 4.2
There will be an emphasis on the following topics:
- Understanding and being able to distinguish samples from populations. You should understand the concept of simple random sampling and how this differs from sampling methods where members are drawn proportionally from categories or from clusters.
- Understanding and interpreting frequency distributions and their graphical analogs (Histograms, Pareto Charts, stem plots, dot plots, scatter plots, etc…). You should be able to identify normality and non-normality of the data from these representations.
- Computing and interpreting the mean, median and mode from simple data sets. You should understand which statistics are resistant to outliers and which are sensitive to outliers. You should also be able to compute a weighted mean or the mean from a frequency distribution.
- Computing and interpreting the sample standard deviation and variance for simple data sets. You should be able to interpret the spread or dispersion in the data using: Chebyshev’s theorem, the empirical rule, z scores and the coefficient of variation.
- Summarizing data sets with percentiles. You should be able to produce a five number summary for a simple data set or interpret the analogous box plot. You should also be able to compute what percentile some value belongs to.
- Fundamentals of probability. You should be able to compute simple proabilities as in the class examples. Particularly, given an event \(A\) and an event \(B\) you should be able to identify and interpret: \(\overline{A}, A \text{ and } B, A \text{ or } B\), and you should be able to compute the probability of these events for easy examples.
Suggested problems
In Pearson, there is an online miderm 1 review – this is not scored for the final grade, and you can ignore problems that go beyond section 4.2. Problems in this review will be similar to some of the multiple choice questions.
In the textbook, you are recommended to study chapter review problems that emphasize the above topics.
In the lectures, you are recommended to study all discussion questions that emphasize the above topics.
You are recommended to review all quiz questions, the short answer questions will probability be similar to the questions you have seen.