Learning Team B Assignment Week Five
Chapter 14, Exercise 14-2_1-8
Exercises 1 through 8 include questions that contain a flaw. Identify the flaw and
rewrite the question, following the guidelines presented in this section.
1. Will you vote for John Doe for class president or will you vote for Bill Jones, the
football star?
The mistake in this question would be “the football star” (asking biased questions).
Right way to reword it would be: Will you vote for John Doe or Bill Jones for class
president?
2. Would you buy an ABC car even if you knew the manufacturer used imported parts?
The mistake in this question would be “even if you knew the manufacturer used
imported parts” (asking biased questions).
Right way to reword it would be: Would you purchase an ABC car?
3. Should banks charge their checking account customers a fee to balance their
checkbooks when customers are not able to do so?
The mistake in this question would be ordering questions wrongly. By placing “when
clients are unable to do so” at the conclusion lead the participant reply in a particular
method which she or he won't have done.
Right way to reword it would be: Should banks bill their checking account clients a fee to
balance their checkbooks?
4. Do you think that students who didn’t attend Friday’s class should not be allowed to
take the retest?
The mistake in this question would be “should not be allowed” (using double negative in
questions).
Right way to reword it would be: Do you consider that students that didn't go to Friday’s
class be permitted to take the retest?
5. How long have you studied for this examination?
The mistake in this question would be ‘How long” (using complicated words).
The right way to reword it would be: How many hours or days did you study for this
examination?
How long to me is period therefore I think it may be hours. I don't know which direction
to go with this one.
6. Which artificial sweetener do you prefer?
The mistake in this question would be (open ended question) must list 3 artificial
sweeteners which they prefer.
The right way to reword this would be: Which artificial sweetener do you prefer Splenda,
Sweet N’ Low, or Necta Sweet?
7. If a plane were to crash on the border of New York and New Jersey, where should
the survivors be buried?
The usage of complicated words might be the mistake with this question. In case there
are survivors following a plane accident, they would not require having an area to be
buried.
The right question would be: In case a plane were to crash on the edge of New Jersey
and New York, in which state would the victims be buried?
8. Are you in favor of imposing a tax on tobacco to pay for health care related to
diseases caused by smoking?
The mistake in this question appears to be that it asks multiple questions and the
questions are complicated. Health care includes all medical inflictions and not only
those linked to smoking.
The right questions must be worded as: Are you in support of imposing a tobacco tax?
Should the funds gathered from the tobacco tax be employed to pay for medical care?
Chapter 6, Exercise 6.1
What is the difference between the probability distribution of a discrete random variable
and that of a continuous random variable? Explain
1) Possibility that a continuous random variable will take on a specific value is zero,
since the variable is continuous, while in discrete random variable the variable have
always set values which it can get and therefore there's a fixed probability linked with
each value.
2) You can't show the continuous probability distribution in a tabular shape since the
variable is continuous and it is always displayed by a graph. You can represent a
discrete probability distribution with a graph as well as in tabular shape.
3) The graph of a continuous probability distribution is continuous while this isn't the
situation with discrete probability distribution
4) In discrete probability distributions you can compute each probability individually
while in continuous probability distribution the probability is computed by the area under
the graph between two particular values.
5) In continuous probability distribution probability is always computed for a range,
where in discrete probability distribution probability is computed for a given set of
discrete values.