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We will continue with confidence intervals today. The calculation on confidence intervals is straightforward — the formula in the box on p455. However, the reasoning behind confidence intervals requires some thinking. The more you understand, the less you have to memorize. Try to understand as much as you can today. When you do multiple choice next week, you will have another opportunity to revisit the concepts at a deeper level. (See bottom of this page for more details).

 

Instructions

• There is 1 problem, #20.28, with three sub-parts in this lab work. Two of the sub-parts are NOT in the book.  (#20.28 is EXACTLY the same in both the 8th and the 9th edition).

• • #20.28 a) on p472
  • 2 additional sub-parts (1 & 2) based on #20.28

 

• The video explains the concept and shows you how to do the lab work:

Ch 16 & 20 One-sample t confidence interval

 

• Submit your lab work as one single PDF file to Canvas before the due date.

 

For Ch 16 & 20 one-sample t confidence interval multiple-choice questions

The following video is for the multiple choice questions. You don’t need the video below for your lab work today.

Ch 16 & 20 multiple choice — one-sample t confidence interval

 

Challenge

At this time of the semester, the challenge for students is that they find the concepts and calculations of hypothesis testing and confidence intervals similar and yet different.

When we learn each topic one at a time, things seem straightforward. However, when you put everything together, things start to get confusing.

For example, you might wonder, “How many different ways do we use the t values for?” or “What is the difference between all these standard deviations?”

Questions like these are what we call “connecting the dots”-type of questions. These questions require you to reflect on knowledge from various topics and assimilate them in a coherent manner.

Being able to assimilate knowledge is the key to success in this course. So how do you assimilate concepts?

Focus on homework multiple choice questions!

First, you need to learn the basic concepts well. That means that you aim to score at least 90% in each multiple choice set.

Lab work problems are typically straightforward because that is the first round of learning so the questions cannot be too difficult. But we need to go deeper than the lab work problems and it is where the multiple choice homework comes in.

Some of you may have already noticed that multiple choice homework forms the backbone of each exam (the ideas of lab work problems are already incorporated into each multiple choice set). So if you made mistakes in the multiple choice homework, make sure you go over the mistakes right away instead of waiting till the exam time.

Second, you need to allocate time to think about these “connecting the dots”- type of questions — write down your questions as you go along, reflect and find answers to them! If you have questions, please ask!

Third, practice, practice, practice in the right way! Math is like a sport — the more you practice, the better you play but you have to practice in the right away!

 

To prepare for the final exam, you are expected to redo each set of multiple choice problems at least two rounds WITHOUT referring to your book or notes. That is, you are expected to memorize the formulas and concepts AFTER you understand them well. If you still make mistakes or need to refer to your book or notes when you are redoing the multiple choice each time, that means you are not ready yet and that means you’ll need to go over the problems one more round. Does it take time? Yes, it does. But there is just no other way to do well in a math class except practice, practice, practice in the right way!

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