Do Chapter 1 of our text. On Friday January 9th you will be quizzed on 4 randomly selected, slightly modified problems from this chapter. Your first project will be to implement a pretest of a survey. The details concerning this project will be posted soon. To prepare yourself, please read topics 1-5 concerning " What is a Survey? ".
On Monday we will explore Mad Cow Disease . In particular, we will be looking at the media's reaction to the disease and discussing the following question:
1. What is the chance of getting mad cow disease?
A BRIEF description of your solution to question 1 is due by 4:30 tomorrow and is to be turned into Professor Rudel's mail box on the third floor of Bradley Hall. All group members names should be listed on you assignment.
On Wednesday will continue observation by exploring the following questions QUESTIONS, with the following solutions.
Once gain, a BRIEF description of your solutions to the questions is due by 4:30 tomorrow and is to be turned into Professor Rudel's mail box on the third floor of Bradley Hall. All group members names should be listed on you assignment.
Recall, there is a quiz on Friday. You may bring and use a calculator. Professor Leibon will have office hours on Thursday from 11:00-12:00 in 308 Bradley, and he will be at the X-hour (from 12:00-12:50) to answer questions.
WE WILL NOT MEET ON SATURDAY! We will makeup this lecture in an X-hour (TBA).
Do pages 40-57 of Chapter 2 of our text. On Friday January 16th you will be quizzed on 4 randomly selected, slightly modified problems from this chapter. Your first project will be to implement a pretest of a survey. Please read topic 9 concerning " What is a Survey? ".
On Monday: Survey Introduction. We will imagine the following scenario:
Suppose the BAA (the Beef Association of America) has concluded that there is unfounded fear of beef in America after the BSE case discovered in Washington. You have been hired by the BAA to write an article aimed at reassuring Americans that beef is safe.
1. How might you use our comparisons between driving risks and Lottery chances to help you argue your case?
2. To answer question requires that you have good intuitions for how Americans view these topics. Develop a short survey to test whether your intuitions are correct.
3. What other methods might you use to test these intuitions?
On Wednesday we began discussing random samples and margin of error. Note: professor Leibon will be at the X-hour (from 12:00-12:50 this Th to answer questions. On Friday you will administer your pretest survey (from your first project).
On Friday we will perform our pretests (as best we can). If we have enough time we will administer the quiz. If not, then we will postpone the quiz till Wednesday.
Monday is a Dartmouth holiday. Here are some additional office hours to be held on Tuesday January 20th. Recall, your first project is due on Wednesday January 21st.
Office Hours:
Rudel from 2:30-3:30 in Bradley 1-F,
Leibon from 3:30-5:30 in Bradley 308,
and by appointment.
On Wednesday we will administer our quiz (the quiz that was postponed from last Friday). Your next Quiz will cover pages 57 through 76 of the text and be administered on Monday January 27th. We will begin discussing what it means to randomly sample something We will be looking at the Iowa story: " King of the mountain", "a casual slide", "a cliff?", "Why?", and "What Now"?
Friday: Today we will examine how to model such a random sampling process. First we examine an empirical test case by faking the Iowa results, and then trying to abstract and capture this model via the binomial distribution. (Warning: You may need to use Explorer in order to view the "faking" link.)
Do Chapter 3 of our text. On Monday February 2nd you will be quizzed on 4 randomly selected, slightly modified problems from this chapter.
Tomorrow is the NH primary. Here is an organization of the recent poll data, while here are the latest odds. On Monday we will be "flipping" a "coin" and asking the following fundamental questions:
1. Suppose our "coin" is fair. What do we expect to happen when we "flip" it?
2. Suppose we "flip" our "coin" 25 times. How might you decide whether or not our "coin" is biased?
3. Suppose the "coin" is fair. What is the chance that you declare the "coin" biased?
Wednesday: The primary results, how did the polls do? Today we abstract our hypothesis test.
Thursday: Excel Slam 1 (12:30). You need to organize data somehow. If you already know how to use a spread sheet program great! For those who don't, we will be running some optional sessions to learn how to use Excel. This Thursday will be a brief introduction, and at this session a sign up sheet will be available for students who want to attend next Thursday's Excel Slam 2, which will be held at the Starr Instructional Center. (At 12:30ish the first assignment will handed back and I'll stick around to answer questions.
Friday: z values and the normal distribution. At least half this class will devoted to a going through the "harder" material in chapters 2 and 3. Do chapter 3 before Friday and come to class prepared with questions. How do you estimate things that happen once ?
Do Chapter 4 of our text. On Monday February 9th you will be quizzed on 4 randomly selected, slightly modified problems from this chapter, and from pages 92-126 of the text.
Recall, we will have a quiz today on page 59-91 of the text. Professor Leibon will have extra office hours from 9:00-10:00 Monday morning to answers question about this material. The book has some typos. Note: You can get extra credit towards your quiz grade for finding typos, so keep a sharp eye out and e-mail professor Leibon the typos that you find! Check the list first, you will only receive extra credit for typos that have not yet made the official list.
The remainder of this week will will be hypothesis test practice days, in preparation for you group project.
In particular, we will run our Hanover tap water hypothesis test that we designed together. Here is our proposal together with the Excel Computations and the Data Charts discussed in the proposal. Having gone through this should help you with your group project, and in particular with the section due next Wednesday. For some further help, here is Roselinde's excellent example of a project 1, so that you can see an example of the type of thing we are looking for: her write up and her Graphs and Data. (I apologize for the type setting problems that occurred when converting this document to a web page. If you'd prefer here is the original source code of the write up and the Graphs and Data.)
Project Week! Here is a sample of what is due Wednesday, and here is a sample presentation (your presentation is not due till a week from Thursday). This presentation is a presentation of our Hanover tap water hypothesis test (the test we administered in class last Friday). Sometime in the next week you will be administering your own hypothesis test as part of you group project. Since this is likely to be time consuming, there will be no quiz next week. However, you should read through chapters 5 and 6 in order to expand the list of candidate test statistics available to you for your hypothesis test (as lectured on Monday).
On Wednesday we begin studying probability, a topic that is likely to be the heart of your final individual project. Our first discussion is very reminiscent of the original text book on probability by Huygens. We will be looking at Huygens from the point of view of various bets and wagers.
Your primary work this week will be completing and presenting your group projects. In class we will be taking our first serious stab at probability. On Monday, we will explore the Fundamental Mysteries of Probability and
On Wednesday. we will use the notion of Fair price to introduce the notion of
By Friday morning, please email professor Leibon an electric copy of your Power Point presentation, your proposal, and your data analysis (so that they can be posted on the web). Here is when you will present. Here is a table of the remaining Chance Assignments including descriptions and due dates.
| Assignment | Due Date |
| Critique | Friday February 27 |
| The Big Double Quiz | Monday, March 1. |
| Final Project | Monday March 15 |
Once you send me your project I will place it in the following table. To do your critique you will need to choose one of these:
Wednesday (Feb 25): An introduction to conditional probability:
Thursday (Feb 26): We will have an problem session at our X-hour time in order to carefully answer any questions and go through some examples from chapters 7 and 8 of the text.
Friday (Feb 27): Conditional Probability, continued:
This lectures contains further ideas for a final project!
| HTML Version | MS Word |
| The IRV Debate | Debate |
| First two Examples | Examples |
| A Third Example | Example 3 |
| A Fourth Example | Example 4 |
| The Joke | |
| The Punch Line | |
| Two Types of IRV | IRV Types |
Wednesday (March 3): Game day: Today we learn how to price and play a game.
Elizabeth J. Whittington's office hours for next week are listed below. She is available by appointment and on a drop-in basis during these hours.
Monday, 3/8: 11AM-5PM
Tuesday, 3/9: noon-5PM
Wednesday, 3/10: 11AM-5PM
Thursday, 3/11: 10AM-5PM
She is available by appointment only on Fridays and during certain hours not listed above. Call or email her for an appointment (Office Number: 603.646.9020, Cell Number: 603.252.7177,E-Mail: Elizabeth.J.Whittington@Dartmouth.edu). All students are encouraged to reserve time in an expeditious manner and should get their papers to her via email or her Bradley mailbox the day before your meeting.
Friday (March 5): How to catch Tax Evaders. We explored the Benford distribution. Here is a draft of the final project we examined in class:
