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Inferential statistics

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  • 28-02-2015 5:59pm
    #1
    lostatsea
    Registered Users Posts: 320 ✭✭


    I was helping my brother who is doing HL Maths with statistics which I'm doing in college. I prepared for this by downloading the syllabus and looking at a document about Inferential Statistics on the Project Maths website.

    However, when I did the grind he was telling me he didn't recognise lots of the stuff I was doing. He had notes and a revision book that seemed to using techniques different to those on the syllabus.

    One example involved finding the confidence interval for a population proportion. It states quite clearly that the margin of error is plus/minus the square root of p(1 - p) over n. This is the formula in the table book. Yet he used a different, simplified formula. And there were other things as well which I considered to be wrong according to the syllabus.

    Does anyone know what I'm talking about or am I missing something?


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    #2
    Troxck
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,386 ✭✭✭Troxck


    lostatsea wrote: »
    I was helping my brother who is doing HL Maths with statistics which I'm doing in college. I prepared for this by downloading the syllabus and looking at a document about Inferential Statistics on the Project Maths website.

    However, when I did the grind he was telling me he didn't recognise lots of the stuff I was doing. He had notes and a revision book that seemed to using techniques different to those on the syllabus.

    One example involved finding the confidence interval for a population proportion. It states quite clearly that the margin of error is plus/minus the square root of p(1 - p) over n. This is the formula in the table book. Yet he used a different, simplified formula. And there were other things as well which I considered to be wrong according to the syllabus.

    Does anyone know what I'm talking about or am I missing something?

    You are correct. I'm assuming he is in 6th Year? In 5th Year, our class covered Stats and Probability using different formulae and methods, which are now outdated. In the exam, we must use the ones stated on the syllabus. It's a mess for most current 6th Years as we have to relearn those chapters without the aid of our books, which are outdated too.

    In the exam, if he uses his old method, he will get 0. (This happened to people in my class during the Mocks, their answers were correct but because their methods involved the older formulae, they got 0)

    There should be sample questions online which can only be answered using the new formulae.


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    #3
    Frigating
    Registered Users Posts: 249 ✭✭Frigating


    That simplified formula (1 over root n?) is the old and now just OL one, which HL aren't supposed to be using this year. While there are different techniques for different things I'd say that one would lose him marks. That's what I was told, at least. Are his notes and revision books project maths? Did he get the notes from his teacher or from a book, because if it's his teacher s/he may be following the old course perhaps? Unlikely but if that is the case then what else is s/he teaching him wrong?


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    #4
    lostatsea
    Registered Users Posts: 320 ✭✭lostatsea


    Frigating wrote: »
    That simplified formula (1 over root n?) is the old and now just OL one, which HL aren't supposed to be using this year. While there are different techniques for different things I'd say that one would lose him marks. That's what I was told, at least. Are his notes and revision books project maths? Did he get the notes from his teacher or from a book, because if it's his teacher s/he may be following the old course perhaps? Unlikely but if that is the case then what else is s/he teaching him wrong?

    He is using a revision book for maths which is supposed to be for the 2015 exam. He got the notes from a seminar he attended I think.


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    #5
    Troxck
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,386 ✭✭✭Troxck


    lostatsea wrote: »
    He is using a revision book for maths which is supposed to be for the 2015 exam. He got the notes from a seminar he attended I think.

    The change is quite recent, my teacher only received the information of it after Christmas and we had to do extra classes to make up for it. The current 5th Years in our school with the new edition of the book have the amended formulae but current 6th Years are expected to be aware of the changes and utilise them in the exam.


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