Mock
Mock
Structure of actual exam – total 100 points: 5-10 true/false, 10-20 multiple choice, balance free answer.
This mock exam has two goals: (1) to give you an experience similar to (but not identical to) that of taking the actual exam,
and (2) to give you some review questions.
A mock exam may have more questions than the actual exam. There is no guarantee that the actual exam will cover only
material on the mock exam or cover it in the same way.
Instructions:
2
• Write all your answers – and any parts of your work that you want considered for partial credit –
in the blue book provided.
• Write your ID on this exam booklet and on your blue book. Put the exam booklet inside the blue
book when you are done.
• You may do the sections in any order you wish, but make sure that the question number is clearly
indicated.
• Answer all problems. If you do not know how to do a problem, you may want to skip it and come
back to it at the end.
• Use your calculator and a copy of the formula card that we supply.
• You do not need to show the details of calculations, unless you want to receive partial credit. If
you wish your answer to be considered for partial credit you must show your calculations in the blue book.
Partial credit will only be given for work that is seen as a step toward the correct answer. Random facts
relating to elements of the question will not get partial credit.
• Make clear what is the final answer to the question. If there is any ambiguity, circle the number
that is the final answer.
• You will lose points if the presentation of results and text are difficult to follow.
• On this exam you do not need to check whether or not you can use the normal approximation of
the sampling distribution to compute a confidence interval or do a hypothesis test except when the problem
explicitly asks you to do so.
• Unless the problem explicitly states how the sample was gathered, assume that all samples are
generated through simple random sampling.
• Problems may give very large test statistics.
Good luck!
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Practice Exam 1
Part I: True/False and Multiple Choice (2 points each) (12%)
1. The median of a density curve is always the point that divides the area under the curve in half.
True False
2. Simpson’s paradox results from a variable omitted in the pooled table acting as a lurking
variable.
True False
3. A low value of r2 indicates that a large proportion of the variation in y remains unexplained by
the regression.
True False
4. Lurking variables are one reason we cannot infer causality from an association among two
variables.
True False
5. The height of a density curve for a range of values gives the proportion of observations that fall
under the density curve for that range of values.
True False
6. If a histogram has a bar that is taller than the other bars then this is suggestive of a skewed
distribution.
True False
8. A description of different houses on the market includes the following three variables. Which
of the variables is quantitative?
The following histogram represents the distribution of acceptance rates (percent accepted) among 25
business schools in 1997. In each bin, the left endpoint is included but not the right.
10. What percent of the schools have an acceptance rate of under 20%?
a) .16% b) 4% c)12% d) 16%
12. Which of the following intervals include the median of this distribution?
a. 30 to 40
b. 20 to 30
c. 15 to 25
d. cannot be determined from the information given
___________________________________________________________________________
3
Use the following box plot of the exam scores in a statistics class to answer questions 13-15. The
boxplot is drawn per Moore (e.g. not per StataQuest).
90
75
60
45
30
__________________________________________________________________________________
16. Using data from the fifty states, a researcher calculates the correlation coefficient between the
infant mortality rate (deaths per 1000) X in 1990 in the state versus the percent 18 year olds in
the state in 1990 that graduated from high school. The correlation between X and Y is r =
-0.54. If instead of plotting these variables for each of the fifty states, we plotted the values of
these variables for each county in the United States, we would expect the value of the
correlation r to be
a. exactly the same
b. closer to zero
c. + 0.54 (the magnitude is the same, but the sign should change)
d. closer to –1
_________________________________________________________________________________
4
17. In a statistics class with 136 students, the professor records how much money each student has
in her or his possession during the first class of the semester. The histogram below shows the
data collected.
Frequency
50
40
30
20
10
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Amount of Money in $
_________________________________________________________________________________
18. X and Y are two categorical variables. The best way to determine if there is a relation between
them is to
a. calculate the correlation between X and Y.
b. draw a scatterplot of the X and Y values
c. make a two-way table of the X and Y values
d. all of the above
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Answer all questions. In some cases, we will award partial credit for correct parts of a problem even if
the final answer is incorrect. Partial credit will only be given for work that is seen as a step toward the
(correct) final answer. Random facts relating to the problem will not get partial credit. To get partial
credit, you need to show your work.
1. Below are data from Fortune Magazine on the number of research centers in 10 American
cities.
C. If we were to delete Los Angeles from the data, which would change more, the standard
deviation of the variable or the interquartile range? (2 points)
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2. Below is a stem-and-leaf plot of the percentage of the population Christian among states in the
Northeastern region of the United States. (6%)
3|69
4|
5|599
6|1
a. What proportion of the area under the standard normal curve falls to the right of z=
-0.5? (3 points)
d. Scores on the California test of basic skills are normally distributed with mean 50 and
standard deviation 25. What is the lowest score you would need on the California test
of basic skills to be in the top 20% of all scores? (4 points)
e. On the California test of basic skills (mean 50 and standard deviation 25) what
percentage of scores fall between 35 and 50? (4 points)
_______________________________________________________________________________
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4. The graph below is a histogram drawn in StataQuest of age at first marriage for 296 married
persons in the general social survey. Each bin is two years wide. (6%)
.2
Fraction
.1
10 20 30 40 50
a. What proportion of persons in the sample were married at the ages of either 20 or 21?
(Give your best guess based on the graph. Close will get full credit. 2 points)
b. The mean age at first marriage in this sample is 21.8. Will the median age of marriage
for the sample be greater than, less than, or equal to 21.8? (2 points)
__________________________________________________________________________________
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5. A researcher regresses years of education (response or dependent) on number of siblings
(explanatory or independent) using data on individuals from a large survey. She gets the
following regression equation (16%):
Ŷ = -.227x + 13.48
a. Explain in one or two sentences what the slope says about the relationship between
number of siblings and years of education. (3 points)
b. A statistics professor has 5 siblings and 20 years of education. What is the residual for
the statistics professor? (3 points)
c. If the standard deviation of the number of siblings variable is 3.0, and the standard
deviation of the years of education variable is 3. 15, what is the correlation between
education and number of siblings? (3 points)
20
15
10
0 5 10 15
e. Place an “x” on the graph above to show where the statistics professor (of part b) would
appear if graphed on the scatterplot. Then put an “o” on the graph to show the predicted
value for the professor based on the regression. (2 points)
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f. When we delete the statistics professor from the regression, the slope of education
changes to -.231. Is the statistics professor acting as an influential observation? Why or
why not? (2 points)
_________________________________________________________________________________
6. Below is a crosstabulation based on data from the 1986 general social survey. The two
variables are belief in life after death (based on a survey question) and the education of the
respondent in three categories (less than 11 years of education, 12 years of education, and 13 or
more years of education) (11%).
Do you
believe in | education
life after |
death? | 0/11 12 13+ | Total
no | 86 74 ___ | 246
| |
| |
b. Percentage the conditional distributions assuming that education is the independent (or
explanatory) variable and belief in life after death is the dependent (or response) variable.
Write the percentages below the corresponding frequencies above. (4 points)
c. Describe in words the association of the independent (or explanatory) and dependent (or
response) variable (mention both the direction and strength of relationship). (4 points)