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AP®︎/College Statistics
Course: AP®︎/College Statistics > Unit 1
Lesson 4: Statistics for two categorical variablesConditional distributions and relationships
Example: College grades
A small private college was curious about what levels of students were getting straight A grades. College officials collected data on the straight A status from the most recent semester for all of their undergraduate and graduate students. The data is shown in the two-way table below:
Undergraduate | Graduate | Total | |
---|---|---|---|
Straight A's | 240 | 60 | 300 |
Not | 3, comma, 760 | 440 | 4, comma, 200 |
Total | 4, comma, 000 | 500 | 4, comma, 500 |
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- In the answer options of the problem 4, what is the difference between the option B and C? I think both answers are correct. Are not they?(35 votes)
- Choice C is like this :
C: Straight A students ( Total is 300 students ) were more likely to be graduate ( 60 students) than undergraduate ( 240 students) !
in other words; if all students who got Straight A (graduate + undergraduate) gathered in one class, then most of them would be graduate or undergraduate?(12 votes)
- Example problems are helpful and all, but how come there aren't any written definitions for what Marginal and Conditional Distribution are?(22 votes)
- Yes, they are not very straightforward. I use statology.com to help with definitions, because math has so many. Marginal distributions compare one variable to a whole population. Ex: number of females in U.S versus the whole U.S population. Conditional distributions compare a variable to a subpopulation. Ex: Proportion of women in the U.S who are married.(2 votes)
- The wording is SO confusing to me.
You wrote in Problem 3:
"Calculate the conditional distribution of straight A status for each level of student."
How do I know if I should focus on the OF (straight A) or the FOR (each level of student)? Do I calculate row or column?
Either I am stupid in English or it is really confusing.
Please someone help me?(16 votes)- We're finding the conditional probability of x (the numerator) for each of y (clue that it should go in the denominator).
If they asked "Find the conditional probability of level of study for straight A status" then these would be reversed.(5 votes)
- he tryin to gas it up💀(6 votes)
- Hello,
I'm looking into doing AP Statistics next year, for my senior year of high school, and am wondering what prerequisites I need. Algebra 1? Algebra 2? Geometry? Precalc? Calc?
Thank you in advance!
Isabella(3 votes)- I did Alg 1 through Geometry before I did AP Stats, but you certainly don't need any sort of calculus class to do AP Stats.(3 votes)
- Why is there an association? There is only a 6% difference between undergraduates with all A's and graduates with A's. That is almost an opinion based question(5 votes)
- Yes, the difference is only 6%, but graduates are twice as likely to have straight A's than undergraduates are, which is a rather large relative difference.(1 vote)
- what does * in counts * mean(2 votes)
- Instead of percentage, it is just asking how many times it occurs(6 votes)
- I believe that Problem 2 is ambiguous, as it asks for one correct answer which is C, but both B and C appear to be correct answers. B says "There are far more students without straight A's than there are with straight A's.", which seems to be true, given a ratio of 4200 to 300.(0 votes)
- From the author:Problem 2 asks what conclusion we can draw from the highlighted distribution, and the highlighted distribution only tells us about the ratio of undergraduate to graduate students.(10 votes)
- The explanation of the first example states that "A conditional distribution turns each count in the table into a percentage of individuals who fit a specific value of one of the variables.", but in the exercise the values aren't always percentages; just counts! Is the article definition incorrect?(3 votes)
- From the author:That definition is correct! The first conditional distribution in this article appears in Problem 3.(1 vote)
- why do i have to do this, when will i need to use this.(0 votes)
- statistics is a simplification of how the human brain works, the relations between facts are just as important as the facts themselves and understanding that will help you understand virtually anything. It's crucial to be able to see the whole picture AND the details AND the relationship between the details all at the same time to understand a concept.(13 votes)