Practice Examination for Computer Applications
CAP34EXAM.DOC
This is an open-book examination during which you will need to be logged on to microcomputer
which has a SPSS, Word, Excel, access to the Internet, and a printer. You will be asked to
conduct specific analyses, print some output, combine output from your statistics program with
your word processor, write copies of files onto a disk, etc. You may consult your notes, books,
and documentation on the system itself, but not any person. Allow three hours to work on the
examination.
Good luck! Dale
At the end of the examination, you will be asked to provide an edited summary of output
and associated command files. Thus, be sure to label your work by problem number and
save it as you go through the exam. Cumulate your work in a Word file called
EXAM.DOC. A convenient technique is to ask SPSS to include syntax in the output file: In
SPSS, select Edit; Options; Viewer; check the box labeled ‘Display commands in the log’
located in the bottom left part of the window.
For each problem, save your syntax as well as your output.
All of the files for this practice examination can be found on Google Drive with links from
this document. Download a copy of this exam at CAP34EXAM.docx If you open a copy of
this exam online, you can access files by holding ‘Ctrl’ and left clicking on the hot links.
1. Read the data file called BANK1.SAV into SPSS. Another file called BANK.DOC
describes BANK1.SAV and how it is coded.
a) Find the average age for each of the four groups defined by SEX and MINORITY.
b) Create a new variable called RAISE defined as the difference between SALNOW and
SALBEG. Create a histogram of RAISE for clerical employees only.
c) What is the sex, age, and minority status for the five clerical employees with the largest
values on RAISE?
d) Conduct a t-test to compare the years of work experience for male and female college
trainees. Report the mean for each group along with the t-test assuming unequal
variances.
2. BANK2.SAV is a second data file in the same format as BANK1.SAV. Combine these two
data files into a file called BANK3.SAV and generate a stem-and-leaf plot of current salary
for all employees combined, with duplicate cases omitted.
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3. You would like to examine the educational level of a group of research participants. Your
assistant, Mr. Bumble Beasley, said "No problem, Boss! Just leave it to me." The next
morning you found a note on your desk that said "The information you want is in a file called
BUMBLE.DAT. The name of each employee is in columns 1 through 15, and the years of
formal school/university education is in columns 18 and 19. See you in two weeks. I'm off
to Hawaii! Aloha!"
Read the file BUMBLE.DOC, a file that contains more information on coding.
Hint: Before you report summary statistics, it is prudent to assess the quality of your data
(especially if you have an assistant named Bumble).
a) List all of the corrections you made in the data set.
b) Prepare a verbal summary and interpretation of the cleaned data. Don't just list all of your
findings, but select the most useful and present them in a way that a person with no
statistical background would understand. Include a computer-generated histogram in your
summary.
4. Your task is to create an Excel worksheet that will calculate the p value for a t-test. Part of
the work has already been done for you, in the Excel file called tprob.xls. Your task is to
enter a formula into cell D8 that will calculate the one-tailed probability of finding an
observed sample mean as large or larger than the score in cell D2, given an underlying
normal distribution with any specified population mean (cell D4), sample standard deviation
(cell D5), and sample size (D6). Save your answer in a file called tAnswer.xls.
If the population mean is 100 and the sample standard deviation is 10, what is the probability
of observing a sample mean of 102 or larger for a random sample of size 23? (Use your
program.)
p = __________
Answers are in CAP34ANS.DOC. Don't peek until you have tried the problems yourself.
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