http://www.khanacademy.

org/math/probability

Quantitative Reasoning 5. MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY This measures tells us the data value that represents the average in the data. 3 levels of variables o Cardinal, order and magnitude of change o Ordinal, order but not magnitude of change o Nominal, nor order nor magnitude For cardinal data, we can obtain mean, median and mode. For ordinal data, we can obtain median and mode, but not the mean. For nominal data (religion, nationality), we can obtain the mode, but not the median nor the median. Median is preferred to mean when outliers in the data might skew the result.

6. MEASURES OF DISPERSION This measures tells us how much the data cluster or not cluster around the mean. The standard deviation is the square root of the average squared deviation of the data from the men. Standard deviation formula:

7. INTRODUCTION TO PROBABILITY Basic law of probability: given that all possible outcomes of a given event are equally likely, the probability of any specified outcome is equal to the ratio of the number of ways that that outcome could be achieved to the total number of ways that all possible outcomes can be achieved.

Review the general rules of probability (addition, multiplication, mutually exclusive and independent events) from the book.

8. THE NORMAL PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION The NPD deals with continuous variables / The binomial distribution deals with discrete variables

A z-score is simply the number of standard deviations a score (e.g., data value) of interest lies from the mean of the distribution. A z-score converts a raw data value into their associated probabilities of occurrence with reference to the mean.

For example, a data value exactly 1 standard deviation above the mean will have a zscore of 1.0 Basically, z-scores are used to determine and interpret probabilities of raw scores A Measurement technique based on standard normal scores o A scale or index is a composite measure combining several variables into a single, unified measure of a concept o Because variables are usually measured on different scales (e.g. height and age), you should not simply add scores together to create a new scale o But, you can use standard normal z-scores to overcome the problem of different scales of measurement-a z-score converts any variable to the same unit of measurement o If variables are converted first to z-scores to place them on the same measurement scale and then summed, the resulting scales or indexes will not be distorted by any initial differences in measurement o Before adding z-scores, they can be multiplied by a factor so to weight them

9. THE BINOMIAL PROBABILITY DISTIRBUTION The BPD deals with the probability of observing a certain number of events of interest in a set number of repeated trials BPD is used when dealing with a Bernoulli process: the outcomes of the trial are mutually exclusive and independent from each other BPD formula:

Combination formula:

I didnt understand how to get the median from grouped data (84), which is referred as interpolation. Sometimes, the normal distribution can be used instead of the BPD (159), given that: o Youre looking for the probability only that r or fewer events occurred (or r or more), but not the probability of exactly r events occuring o n*p is greater than 10 o n*(1-p) is also greater than 10 If so, the mean (expected value) and standard deviation is needed: o The mean is n (number of trials) times p (the probability of success) o The standard deviation of a probability distribution (159)

THINGS I DONT UNDERSTAND I didnt understand how to get the median from grouped data (84), which is referred as interpolation. Review the binomial distribution example regarding employment discrimination in 157 How are the mean and the expected value (the average of all possible values weighted by their probability) similar or different (159, second paragraph from last)? It seems that one possibility is that the expected value is the same as the mean when the experiment is run an infinite number. (http://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/randomvariables-topic/random_variables_prob_dist/v/expected-value--e-x)