Download List of topics

Midterm exam
Thursday, March 14, 2002
Regular class time
You may bring one 8.5 by 11 sheet with anything on it that you wish. You may use calculators.
List of topics
Summary statistics
Parameter estimation
Mean
Sample variance and sample standard
deviation
Median
Quantiles
Interquartile range (IQR)
Extremes (maximum, minimum)
Method of moments
Maximum likelihood
Unbiased estimator
Estimation of mean, variance and standard
deviation
Standard error
Confidence interval
Graphical summaries
Hypothesis tests
Histogram
Box and whiskers plot
Scatter plot
Quantile-quantile plot
Null hypothesis
Alternative hypothesis
Test statistic
p-value
Significance level
Critical value
Rejection region
Power
Power curve
t-statistic (hypothesis about mean)
Generalized likelihood ratio statistic
Chisquare approximation
Sampling
Simple random sampling
Stratified sampling
Population
Population mean and variance
Parametric models
Normal distribution
Lognormal distribution
Poisson distribution
Exponential distribution
Gamma distribution
Uniform distribution
Binomial and multinomial distributions
Possible types of questions
Given a list of formulas for statistics and other quantities we have discussed and a list of
statements about statistics and other quantities, match the correct formula or formulas to each
statement.
For a specified collection of objects, people, or some other unit, describe a good way to use
sampling to estimate the average value of some quantity of interest. How would you select your
sample? How would you compute the estimate? How would you indicate the accuracy of your
estimate?
How would you interpret a given plot? What can you say about the underlying distribution of
the data?
For a parametric family of distributions, how would you derive reasonable estimators for the
parameters? How would you indicate the accuracy of your estimates? How could you check
whether or not this parametric family provides a good model for the data? Given values of
summary statistics (e.g., sample mean and variance), compute the value of your estimate or a
confidence interval.
Given a scientific question, describe how to set up a hypothesis test that addresses the question.
What are the null and alternative hypotheses? What is the form of the rejection region? How
would you compute the p-value? For a given significance level, how would you find the critical
value?