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AP Statistics. Day 1: Objective: Students will be able to distinguish between categorical and quantitative variables. WELCOME BACK TO OMHS!. We study statistics because…. … anecdotal evidence is not reliable. … we don’t wish to be lied to. … spotting trends helps us make good decisions
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AP Statistics Day 1: Objective: Students will be able to distinguish between categorical and quantitative variables. WELCOME BACK TO OMHS!
We study statistics because… • … anecdotal evidence is not reliable. • … we don’t wish to be lied to. • … spotting trends helps us make good decisions • Simply, we study statistics because we want to make sense of the world.
Introduction to Statistics • Statistics is the science of data. • Any set of data contains information about some group of individuals. • The information is gathered in variables. • A variable is any characteristic of an individual. • Individuals are the objects described by a set of data. (People, animals, things, etc.)
Understanding and Examining Data Questions to ask yourself: • What individuals do the data describe? • How many individuals appear in the data? • How many variables are there? • What are the definitions of each variable
Questions to ask yourself: (cont.) 5) In what units are each variable recorded in? • Is there any reason to mistrust the data? • Why was the data gathered? • What questions do we want to answer? • Do we want to draw conclusions about individuals other than the ones we actually have data for?
Types of Variables • Categorical Variables:record which of several groups or categories an individual belongs to. • Quantitative Variables:take numerical values for which it makes sense to do arithmetic operations like adding and averaging.
Distribution • “The distribution of a variable tells us what values the variable takes and how often it takes these values.” • How distributions differ between categorical and quantitative variables?
Class Work • Exercises 1.1 – 1.3 pages 8 – 9 (textbook)
Homework • Read from page 5 (start at Example 1.1) through page 8 (end at Exercises) • Do exercise 1.14 on page 25