Unit 8: The Normal Distribution
Text reading and homework:
Read chapters 18 and 19 of FPP and do the following
Chapter 18 (pages 327-329): 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14
Chapter 19 (pages 351-353): 5, 10, 11
row inmate loses Supreme Court appeal to be spared because of low IQ",
CBS News website, August 7, 2012.
Possible essay questions:
- Population IQ scores are very close to normally distributed, with
standard deviation about 15 points. About
what fraction of people fail to meet the "minimum competency standard"
to stand trial? About what fraction of people have lower IQ's than
the defendant in this case?
- Does the rule of ineligibility for the death penaly based on
IQ make sense? Why or why not?
- Use a spreadsheet to carry out 30 simulations of the two
strategies (i) and (ii) discussed in Problem 9 of Chapter 17 (page 305).
How do your simulation results compare with your theoretical answers
for 9a), b) and c)? Explain.
- A multiple-choice quiz has 25 questions. Each question has 5
possible answers, only one of which is correct. Four points are given
for each correct answer, but a point is taken off for a wrong
answer. Use a spreadsheet to simulate the scores of 100 students
answering all of the questions at random. How many, and what
percentage, of the students score at least 30 points? Compare your
results with those obtained by theoretical computation using
expected value and standard error. Repeat the simulation and
comparison with 400 simulated students guessing randomly.
Use each column of the spreadsheet as a single simulation of 1000 plays.
The number in each cell should contain the winnings on one spin of the
roulette wheel. [i.e. for 9(i) -- the columns strategy -- the contents
of a cell might be =IF(RAND()<(12/38),2,-1).]
Below each simulation, calculate the total winnings.
To count how many of the simulations "came out ahead", won 100 or
lost 100, use the FREQUENCY function with the "data array" being the
row of total winnings, and the "bin array" being -100,0,100 (put
these numbers in three adjoining cells.) The function FREQUENCY
counts how many times an outcome was less than each bin label: So,
the number next to -100 is the number of times we lost more than $100.
The number next to 0 is the count between -$100 and $0. The number
next to $100 is the count between $0 and $100 and the last number is
the count greater than $100. (Note: four counts for three bin numbers.)
To save paper, print out only the bins and frequencies.
A source of help for this project is a
video outlining a similar project.
Revised: 27 August 2012. Questions to:
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