# Final Exam Policies and Information

## Location, Date, and Time

• Location: 250 Pomerene Hall
• Date: Thursday, December 13
• Time: 8:00 AM - 9:45 AM

## Exam Content

The exam will cover selected material presented in class from August 25 to December 3.

• Topic 1 Point Estimation I
• Bias of an Estimator
• Variance of an Estimator
• MSE of an Estimator
• Topic 2 Point Estimation II
• Consistency
• Sufficiency
• Topic 3 Point Estimation III
• Method of Moments
• Maximum Likelihood
• Fitting a Probability Model
• Topic 4 Confidence Intervals
• Confidence Intervals for Means
• Confidence Intervals for Proportions
• Confidence Intervals for Variances
• Confidence Intervals for Difference of Means
• Confidence Intervals for Difference of Proportions
• Topic 5 The Bootstrap
• Bootstrap Confidence Intervals
• The sample() function
• The quantile() function
• Topic 6 Hypothesis Testing
• Main Ideas
• Hypotheses, Significance, Test Statistics, P-Values, Power, Etc.
• Large Sample Tests for…
• Means
• Proportions
• Difference of Means
• Difference of Proportions
• Smalls Sample Tests for…
• Means
• Difference of Means
• Variances
• Topic 7 Nonparametric Testing
• The Sign Test
• Permutation Tests
• Comparison to Parametric Testing
• Topic 8 Simple Linear Regression
• Least Squares
• The SLR Model
• The lm() Function
• The predict() Function
• $$R^2$$
• Topic 9 Inference for Regression
• Sampling Distributions of Regression Coefficients
• Confidence Intervals for Regression Coefficients
• Confidence Intervals for Mean Response
• Prediction Intervals for New Observations
• Topic 10 Bayesian Statistics
• Priors, Likelihoods, and Posteriors
• Bayes Estimators
• Credible Intervals (Using qbeta())
• Bayesian Hypothesis Testing (Using pbeta())

Questions on the Exam will be similar in style to those on Homework and Practice Problems.

## Materials Needed

• Writing utensil.
• Calculator. A graphing calculator is useful but not necessary. Your calculator should be able to perform:
• Combinations.
• Exponents.
• Logarithms.
• Etc.
• One 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper with notes.
• You may use both sides.
• You may write whatever you please.
• You may type and print your notes sheet.
• No funny business. (Möbius strips, magnifying glasses, etc.)
• BuckID
• Must be presented at end of exam.

## Policies

• All answers must be reasonably simplified. For example, cannot contain combinations, they must be calculated.
• Decimals answers with more than four digits must contain four significant digits.
• Where appropriate, final answers must be written in the space provided.
• Grading will be done as follows:
• A correct answer, supported by correct calculations and explanations will receive full credit.
• An incorrect answer supported by substantially correct calculations and explanations will receive proportionally appropriate partial credit.
• A correct answer, unsupported by calculations, explanation, or algebraic work will receive no credit.
• Please be aware of the grade disputes policy in the syllabus.

## Arriving

• If you arrive early, do not sit near the aisle. Move into a row as far as possible.
• This will greatly speed up getting everyone seated and distribution of exams.
• If a student arrives late, they will not need to step over you.
• If someone finishes early, they will not need to step over you.
• If you arrive late, you must find a seat before you are given an exam. Find a seat and raise your hand.
• You may not sit directly next to another student.

## Departing

• Do not mark on your exam after time has been called.
• Failure to adhere to this policy will likely result in an exam grade of 0.
• Anything you write in a few seconds after time has been called could gain you at most 1-2 points because of the partial credit policy. So, is it worth the risk?
• With one minute left, the most important thing you can do is check that your name and and name.number are on your exam.
• Be sure you have written your name and name.number on your exam.
• Turn in your notes sheet. (We will staple it to your exam.)
• Use the closest possible exit.
• Do not speak to your classmates until you have left the room.

In short, don’t cheat. Keep your eyes on your own exam. Any violation will be punished as harshly as possible.

Like most mathematical courses, the most important thing you can do to study is exercise (practice) as much as possible. You have two resources for practice exercises which will be very relevant to the exam:

• Homework
• Practice (Posted with each Homework. Will be added to as we approach the exam.)

You have the solutions for these items, but when using these effectively, you should attempt all problems before referencing the solutions. Reading a solution and thinking “I know this” is very different from starting with a blank page and writing a solution. You won’t have solutions on the exam. You will have a blank page.

Creation of your notes sheet should be a by-product of practicing. Anything you needed to reference in notes when doing the exercises should be written on your notes sheet.

Time spent reading notes is far less valuable than time doing practice exercises. Many students believe reading the textbook or notes is useful for studying. In fact, time spent reading for the sake of reading is completely wasted. The notes and textbook should be used to help you eliminate gaps in your understanding which are discovered through practice problems. (But often, the solutions will be more directly useful.)

• Copying a notes sheet of another student. Writing the notes sheet is a very helpful study tool. The act of simply writing down a definition will make it easier to remember, thus cost you less time during the exam.
• Writing entire problems from homework or practice on a notes sheet. Students who rely on this strategy almost always run out of time on the exam. The notes sheet replaces needing to memorize formulas and definitions, not how to do every type of problem.
• Pulling an all-nighter.

For some general advice on being a good student, take a look at this post from Andrej Karpathy. (Andrej was a very successful CS student, now well known in the Deep Learning community.) I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, but he has a very good perspective.

How many problems are on the exam?

• This question is irrelevant since each problem could have an arbitrary number of parts. A one problem exam could easily be written to be longer than a ten problem exam.

How long will it take to do the exam?

• If you are well prepared and manage your time efficiently: Under 105 minutes.
• If you are ill prepared or manage your time poorly: Over 105 minutes.
• You should not focus on this. Focus on practicing and being able to do questions of the types you’ve seen on homework. Let me worry about this. And believe me, I worry about this a lot.

Is there a practice exam?

• No, but you have a large number of practice problems, some of which, came from old exams.

Will the exam be curved?

• No.

We got our grades back, now will the exam be curved?

• No. Unless you want it to curved to a normal distribution with a mean of 75. In which, case, sure, that would make my life easier.

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