Barron's Ap Statistics

I read Barron’s How to Prepare for the AP Statistics Exam. A very educational book helped a lot on the AP test. It clarified ideas that I was uncertain on. It helped me to understand when to use each test and the assumptions needed for each test. Type I and Type II errors were explained in such a way that they became crystal clear to me instead of muddy. Computer and Minitab outputs were thoroughly explained, and I became comfortable with them after reading this book. The Barron’s guide also formatted equations in the same manner as the AP equation sheet, which helped me become familiar with this format before going into the AP test. I feel that the Barron’s guide helped me to review all the Statistics concepts and refreshed my memory on what I had forgotten.

Many statistical ideas were mentioned in the Barron’s guide. In the topic called Graphing Display the Barron’s guide discusses the different types of graphs, measures of center and spread, including outliers, modes, and shape. Summarizing Distributions mentions different ways of measuring the center, spread, and position, including z-scores, percentile rankings, and the Innerquartile Range, and its role in finding outliers. Comparing Distributions discusses the different types of graphical displays and the situations in which each type is most useful or appropriate. The section on Exploring Bivariate Data explains scatter plots in depth, discussing residuals, influential points and transformations, and other topics specific to scatter plots. Conditional relative frequencies and association, and marginal frequencies for two-way tables were explained in the section entitled Exploring Categorical Data. Overview of Methods of Data Collection explained the difference between censuses, surveys, experiments, and observational studies. Surveys are discussed more in depth in Planning and Conducting Surveys, including characteristics of a well-designed and well-conducted survey, and sources of bias. Planning and Conducting Experiments explains experiments in depth; going over confounding, control groups, placebo effects, and blinding, as well as randomization. Basic rules for probability are discussed in Probability as Relative Frequency, including the law of large numbers, addition rule, and multiplication rule. Other topics discussed in this section include the different types of probability calculations. Combining Independent Random Variables discusses manners in which two variables can be compared to each other and things to be wary of while doing so. Normal Distributions discusses distributions for a population and how it can be used in probabilities, while Sampling Distributions discusses distributions for a sample and how it can be used to find sample statistics and comparing two samples. Confidence Intervals explains every thing there is to know about confidence intervals, and how and when they should be used in each type of test. The portion on Tests of Significance is divided into two sections: Proportions and Means and Chi-squared and Slope of Least Squares Line. In Proportions and Means, the basics of testing are explained: null and alternate hypotheses, Type I and Type II errors. It also explains the hypothesis tests for proportions, a mean, and both paired and unpaired difference between to means. In Chi-square and Slope of Least Squares Line explains the chi-square tests for independence and homogeneity of proportions (goodness of fit in our text), and inference of slope for least squares line. The Barron’s guide was very thorough in its explanation of the statistic topics needed for the AP exam.

The Barron’s

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