hello
These worksheets were created by Mike Bryant at Santa Maria High School, 901 S. Broadway, Santa Maria, CA 93455. Feel free to use them, modify them, and share them. But PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE share with me any improvements you make. And if anyone out there wants to do the same thing for The Lady Tasting Tea, I would love to not have to create them myself.
mbryant@smjuhsd.org
Read the Introduction and Chapter 1 to How to Lie With Statistics. Answer the following questions and be ready to discuss the chapter in class.
1. Choose one of the quotations inside the front cover and discuss how it relates to the Introduction.
2. What does the author mean in the fourth paragraph of Chapter 1, “It is quite improbably salubrious?”
3. List as many sources of sample bias as you can that are mentioned in Chapter 1 and provide an example of each.
4. Put the second paragraph on Page 18 (“A river cannot….”) into your own words.
5. What is the advantage of a stratified random sample and what difficulties does it pose, according to this chapter?
6. On Page 26, the author suggests that most polls are biased in the direction of the Literary Digest error.
a. What incident does this refer to?
b. That incident took place during (and arguably because of) the Great Depression. Are the lessons learned from that still relevant for us today? Why?
c. In what direction is that bias?
7. Comment on the last paragraph of Chapter 1.
Read the Introduction and Chapter 1 to How to Lie With Statistics. Answer the following questions and be ready to discuss the chapter in class.
1. Choose one of the quotations inside the front cover and discuss how it relates to the Introduction.
a. Disraeli: In a fact-minded culture, those without honesty or understanding use statistical language to sensationalize or oversimplify (Pg 8).
b. Wells: We are deluged with data (father-in-law’s newspaper) and
mbryant@smjuhsd.org
Read the Introduction and Chapter 1 to How to Lie With Statistics. Answer the following questions and be ready to discuss the chapter in class.
1. Choose one of the quotations inside the front cover and discuss how it relates to the Introduction.
2. What does the author mean in the fourth paragraph of Chapter 1, “It is quite improbably salubrious?”
3. List as many sources of sample bias as you can that are mentioned in Chapter 1 and provide an example of each.
4. Put the second paragraph on Page 18 (“A river cannot….”) into your own words.
5. What is the advantage of a stratified random sample and what difficulties does it pose, according to this chapter?
6. On Page 26, the author suggests that most polls are biased in the direction of the Literary Digest error.
a. What incident does this refer to?
b. That incident took place during (and arguably because of) the Great Depression. Are the lessons learned from that still relevant for us today? Why?
c. In what direction is that bias?
7. Comment on the last paragraph of Chapter 1.
Read the Introduction and Chapter 1 to How to Lie With Statistics. Answer the following questions and be ready to discuss the chapter in class.
1. Choose one of the quotations inside the front cover and discuss how it relates to the Introduction.
a. Disraeli: In a fact-minded culture, those without honesty or understanding use statistical language to sensationalize or oversimplify (Pg 8).
b. Wells: We are deluged with data (father-in-law’s newspaper) and