Diagnostic Quiz

This is a diagnostic quiz to help us determine the general level of mathematical ability in the class. Some of the skills tested here will not be used in this course. Your score on this quiz will not affect your grade, but please do your best. Please do not use a calculator -- in many cases an estimate will be plenty.
Name:   Last First
Major?
(undecided is OK) 		Year
(graduation)
Any previous statistics course? What?
Computer programming experience? What?

 

Below, if you do not know the answer to a question, do not guess -- just leave it blank.

1. 300 is what percent of 2,000?  

 

2. A town has 100,000 families. one tenth of 1% of these families have incomes over $75,000 a year. The number of such families is  

 

3. There are 100 million eligible voters in the United States. The Gallup pole interviews 5,000 of them. This amounts to 1 eligible voter out of every  

 

4. In the United States, 1 person out of every 500 is in the army, and 3 out of every 10,000 Americans are army officers. What percentage of army personnel are officers?   (Answer "?" if this cannot be determined from the data).  

 

5. In the United States, 1 person out of every 1,500 is a marine, and one-tenth of marine personnel are officers. What fraction of the U.S. Population consists of marine officers?   (Answer "?" if this cannot be determined from the data).  

 

6. is about

30 300 1,000 3,000 Can't tell

 

7. .

True False Don't know

 

8. is smaller than .5.

True False Don't know

 

9.

True False Don't know
 

10. A quart of vodka is 40% alcohol. Write a formula for the percentage of alcohol in a mixture of   V   quarts of vodka and   J   quarts of orange juice.


.4V
40V/(V + J)
(4V + J)/(V + J)
(40V + J)/(100 J)
.40V/ J

 

11. This year John's mother is exactly three times as old as he is. Next year their ages will add up to 50. How old is John?

 

12. Here is a quadratic equation:   3x2 + 17x -28.9207 = 0. One of the following is a solution; which one?

0.87 1.37 2.17 3.81

 

13. The graph of the equation   y = (1/3)x + 2   is a straight line. Does the point (5.1, 3.5) lie on the line?

Yes No Need more information.

 

14. You throw one die. What is the chance of getting an ace ?    

 

15. You throw a pair of dice. What is the chance of getting two
aces: ?    

 

16. Here are three situations:
    (i) A coin will be tossed 100 times. If it comes up heads 60 or more or more times you win $2.
    (ii) A coin will be tossed 1,000 times. If it comes up heads 600 or more 600 or more times you win $2.
    (iii) A (fair) coin has been tossed 100 times and 73 have been tails. If it comes up heads 60 or more times in the next 100 tosses you win $2.
Which is better -- or do they offer the same chance of winning?

(i) (ii) (iii) Same chance.

 

The next three questions refer to the histogram below. A group of people were asked how many hats they own. This is their reply. The horizontal axis is the number of hats, so min = 0, max = 5, while the vertical axis is the number of people who gave that reply.

17. How many people replied?  

 

18. What was the mean reply? 

 

19. median ? 

 

20. The derivative of   x2   is  

 

21. =  

 

22. If  dy/dx  =  x  with  y(0) = 3,  then  

  y(2) =   5/2 4 5 6 7

 

23. To find the value of   c   that minimizes

Differentiate with respect to   x
Differentiate with respect to   c
Can't do it by calculus.

 

24. I know how to make an HTML table like this next answer box:

Yes Not yet Not sure

 

25. I know how to write a script that processes an exam like this one:

Yes Not yet Not sure

 
This is based on a diagnostic quiz from Statistics by Freedman, Pisani, & Purves.