Assignment 1: Descriptive Statistics and Basic Probability
Date: 2-09-2020 Deadline: 6-09-2020
1. A migraine is a particularly painful type of headache, which patients
sometimes wish to treat with acupuncture. To determine whether
acupuncture relieves migraine pain, researchers conducted a randomized
controlled study where 89 females diagnosed with migraine headaches were
randomly assigned to one of two groups: treatment or control. 43 patients in
the treatment group received acupuncture that is specifically designed to treat
migraines. 46 patients in the control group received placebo acupuncture
(needle insertion at nonacupoint locations). 24 hours after patients received
acupuncture, they were asked if they were pain free. Results are summarized
in the contingency table below:
i) What percent of patients in the treatment group were pain free 24 hours
after receiving acupuncture? What percent in the control group?
ii) At first glance, does acupuncture appear to be an effective treatment for
migraines? Explain your reasoning?
iii) Do the data provide convincing evidence that there is a real pain reduction
for those patients in the treatment group? Or do you think that the
observed difference might just be done due to chance?
2. Researchers studying the relationship between honesty, age and self-control
conducted an experiment on 160 children between the ages of 5 and 15.
Participants reported their age, sex, and whether they were an only child or
not. The researchers asked each child to toss a fair coin in private and to
record the outcome (white or black) on a paper sheet, and said they would
only reward children who report white. Half the students were explicitly told
not to cheat and the others were not given any explicit instructions. In the no
instruction group probability of cheating was found to be uniform across
groups based on child’s characteristics. In the group that was explicitly told
to not cheat, girls were less likely to cheat, and while rate of cheating didn’t
vary by age for boys, it decreased with age for girls. In this study, identify
i) the cases,
ii) the variables and their types, and
iii) the main research question.
3. Relaxing after work. The 2010 General Social Survey asked the question,
“After an average work day, about how many hours do you have to relax or
pursue activities that you enjoy?” to a random sample of 1,155 Americans.
The average relaxing time was found to be 1.65 hours. Determine which of
the following is an observation, a variable, a sample statistic, or a population
parameter.
i) An American in the sample.
ii) Number of hours spent relaxing after an average work day.
iii) 1.65.
iv) Average number of hours all Americans spend relaxing after an
average work day.
4. A survey was conducted on 193 Duke University undergraduates who took
an introductory statistics course in 2012. Among many other questions, this
survey asked them about their GPA, which can range between 0 and 4 points,
and the number of hours they spent studying per week. The scatterplot below
displays the relationship between these two variables.
i) What is the explanatory variable and what is the response variable?
ii) Describe the relationship between the two variables. Make sure to
discuss unusual observations, if any.
iii) Is this an experiment or an observational study?
iv) Can we conclude that studying longer hours leads to higher GPAs?
5. A university wants to determine what fraction of its undergraduate student
body support a new $25 annual fee to improve the student union. For each
proposed method below, indicate whether the method is reasonable or not.
i) Survey a simple random sample of 500 students.
ii) Stratify students by their field of study, then sample 10% of
students from each stratum.
iii) Cluster students by their ages (e.g. 18 years old in one cluster, 19
years old in one cluster, etc.), then randomly sample three clusters
and survey all students in those clusters.
6. Determine if the statements below are true or false, and explain your
reasoning.
i) If a fair coin is tossed many times and the last eight tosses are all heads,
then the chance that the next toss will be heads is somewhat less than
50%.
ii) Drawing a face card (jack, queen, or king) and drawing a red card from
a full deck of playing cards are mutually exclusive events.
iii) Drawing a face card and drawing an ace from a full deck of playing
cards are mutually exclusive events.
7. If you flip a fair coin 10 times, what is the probability of
i) getting all tails?
ii) getting all heads?
iii) getting at least one tails?
8. A 2012 Pew Research survey asked 2,373 randomly sampled registered voters
their political affiliation (Republican, Democrat, or Independent) and whether
or not they identify as swing voters. 35% of respondents identified as
Independent, 23% identified as swing voters, and 11% identified as both.
i) Are being Independent and being a swing voter disjoint, i.e. mutually
exclusive?
ii) Draw a Venn diagram summarizing the variables and their associated
probabilities.
iii) What percent of voters are Independent but not swing voters?
iv) What percent of voters are Independent or swing voters?
v) What percent of voters are neither Independent nor swing voters?
vi) Is the event that someone is a swing voter independent of the event
that someone is a political Independent?
9. In parts (i) and (ii), identify whether the events are disjoint, independent, or
neither (events cannot be both disjoint and independent).
i) You and a randomly selected student from your class both earn A’s in
this course.
ii) You and your class study partner both earn A’s in this course.
iii) If two events can occur at the same time, must they be dependent?
