March 20 assignment

Assignment for Monday, March 20 (M 358K, Sp 06, Smith)

Revised 3/13/06

Students whose last names begin with L - Z will be called on today.

I. Review the concept of Confidence Interval from Section 6.1. If you missed class the day before spring break, see the handout from March 10 and be sure to fill in the blanks and pictures yourself.

II. Review exercises 6.25, 6.24, and 6.29 on p. 399.

III. Reread Section 6.2.

Be sure to read slowly, carefully, and think about the ideas, since techniques in later chapters (and possible in your project) will depend on them. Resist the temptation to oversimplify or be satisified with just getting the gist.
Be sure to learn the meaning of the terminology "Null Hypothesis" and "Alternate Hypothesis". Note: "Hypothesis" is used differently in statistics and in mathematics. However, the statistics use and the everyday are similar, although the statistical meaning is more precise.
Be sure to heed the two "cautions" on p. 403.
Be sure to learn the meaning of the terminology "test statistic" (p. 404). Note that this is a special case of the technical meaning of "statistic" in Chapter 3 (p. 232).
Be sure to learn the meaning of the terminology "p-value" (pp. 404 - 405).
In Chapter 3 (p. 203) you encountered the phrase "statistical significance." I told you then that we would make this concept more precise later. The more precise definition is on p. 407. Be sure to update your understanding of this phrase accordingly. Be sure to understand the related concept of "significance level."
Note carefully (p. 407) the distinction between statistical significance and the ordinary meaning of significant (i.e., important).
Be sure you can relate the diagrams (pp. 406, 408, 410, 411, 412) to the concepts of p-values and statistical significance.

IV. Review/retry the following exercises to reinforce reading and for possible class discussion: 6.33, 6.35, 6.39, 6.41, 6.43, 6.32, 6.34, 6.45, 6.47, 6.49, 6.52. (Some of these were originally assigned for Wednesday, March 8, some for Friday, March 10.)