STAT 301 - Business Statistics
Lecture Review #1 - Course Introduction

Following each class there will be a lecture review assignment. These assignments are designed to keep you current on course material, to reinforce learning by repetition of key ideas and computations, and to structure your investigation of class materials beyond the in-class lectures and activities.

Lecture review assignments are due at the beginning of the following class period. They may be typed or neatly hand-written. PLEASE label each submission with your name and the assignment number (to facilitate giving you proper credit). Multiple pages will of course be stapled. You should SHOW YOUR WORK on computational problems.

Exhibit professionalism in what you submit. Use standard size paper (8.5 by 11 inches or thereabouts). Multipage assignments must be stapled. If you are tearing pages out of a spiral-bound notebook, then trim/remove the irregular page edge (which looks just so junior-high.)

Lecture review assignments are not graded. They are simply checked for reasonable effort. Submitting them on time in professional format gives full credit toward your course "participation" grade. Late, very incomplete, or severely unprofessional submissions receive a penalty grade.

While the lecture review assignments provide a small portion of your grade in the course, the primary reason for doing them is that they facilitate mastery of the course material.

Review questions:

1) What roles did the Chevalier de Mere and Blaise Pascal have in the formulation of probability theory?

2) What is the "and" rule for computing probabilities?

3) What is the "or" rule for computing probabilities?

4) What is often the easiest technique for computing a probability, when we are looking for the chance that "at least one" event occurs?.

Computational exercises:

Answer the following computational problems. SHOW YOUR WORK. Brief solutions are given at the bottom of the page so you may check your work.

1) The Fighting Prairie Dogs, the intercollegiate sports teams at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, are utterly dominant. They have a 95% chance of winning any game they play.

a) The football team plays twelve games in a season. What is the probability that they go undefeated?

b) The basketball team plays thirty-five games in a season. What is the probability that they go undefeated?

2) Four people are chosen at random. What is the probability that their birthdays are all in the same month? The chance that they are all in different months?

3) Circulation data indicate that 40% of the population of DeLand read the Daytona Beach News-Journal, while 15% read the DeLand Beacon — with 10% of the city reading both papers. If an advertisement is placed in both papers, what percent of the city will be exposed to the ad?

4) Your friendly neighborhood carnival barker offers you a game called "Queens." In this game, there are six cards — two kings, two queens, and two jacks. The cards are turned face down and shuffled. The player picks two cards and wins if neither card is a queen. What is the probability of winning?

Course syllabus:

Read through the class syllabus. Answer the following questions about the class.

S1) Balph Snerdwell thinks that computing an average is really, really hard, and wants to see Dr. Rasp during office hours for additional help. Where should he go and when should he go there?

S2) Avid hunter Horatio Wajberlinski notes that the first day of deer hunting season falls on a class day. Horatio isn’t going to let a little thing like a class interfere with his opportunity to sit out in the cold and dark and rain on the first day of hunting season. So he skips class. He emails Dr. Rasp in advance to let him (Dr. Rasp) know that he (Horatio) won’t be in class, but gives absolutely no reason why. Is this an excused absence? What happens to Horatio’s grade in the course?

S3) Votmai Tinkinoff is a member of the university’s varsity tic-tac-toe team. They have a match against arch-rival Rollins "College" at the same time as the first exam (or, as Dr. Rasp prefers to call it, "Knowledge Festival"). Obviously, Votmai can’t miss anything as crucially important as a tic-tac-toe match for something as trivial and irrelevant as a Knowledge Festival. When does he take the makeup test?

S4) Ismerelda Tempusfugit is a student in this class. Her parents are planning a family vacation trip to Kafoonistan just as soon as school lets out in the spring. They need to know when Ismerelda’s final exams are, so they can schedule the trip accordingly. When is the Final Exam (or, as Dr. Rasp prefers to call it, the "Ultimate Knowledge Festival") for this course?

S5) Does Dr. Rasp think you should "study for exams" in this class? Why/why not?

S6) Throckmorton P. Addlepate IV is neurotically concerned about his grade in this class. He doesn’t care whether he actually learns anything, as long as he gets at least an "A" (if not higher) in every one of his classes. Yet he can’t seem to find things on Canvas. Before he has a complete breakdown, explain to him what’s going on here.

S7) When is it OK to use generative AI (ChatCPT or similar) in this course? And when is it a really big no-no? Why? What are the penalties for inappropriate use?

SOLUTIONS to computational exercises:
I will normally provide brief solutions to computational problems so you can check your work.
Do NOT simply copy these solutions — you should actually work the problem (doh!). And show your work (doh!).
1a) 0.540     1b) 0.166
2a) 0.00058     2b) 0.573
3) 0.45
4) 0.40