STA1DCT Assignment 1

Assignment 1 is due no later than 5pm Thursday 22nd of March. You must submit your assignment electronically
and as a single file via the LMS page for this subject. Where appropriate, your solutions must include your workings.

In submitting your work, you are consenting that it may be copied and transmitted by the University for the detection
of plagiarism. Please start with the following statement of originality, which must be included near the top of your
submitted assignment:

“This is my own work. I have not copied any of it from anyone else.”

IMPORTANT NOTE: The total possible marks for this assignment is 50. There are 40 marks associated with
accuracy (i.e. correctness of your answers; the breakdown of these marks is indicated on this question sheet), a further
five marks for completeness (you will only get the full five marks for completeness if you make a serious attempt to
answer every question) and a further five marks for your written communication (e.g. clarity, spelling, grammar,
correct use of notations etc.) STA1DCT: 40 + 5 + 5 = 50 marks.

1. The last Australian Household Census was held on the 9th of August, 2016. Below are snapshots of questions
taken from the Census Form. The number to the left of the question is the question number as it appeared in
the form.

15. In which country was the person’s mother born?

19. What is the person’s religion?
44. Last week, how many hours did the person work in all jobs?

For a randomly selected individual, let X denote the response to Question 15, Y denote the response to Question
19 and Z denote the response to Question 44. Consider the below statements, each identified by a letter (i.e.
‘A’, ‘B’ etc.) To successfully answer this question, provide the letter(s) identifying ALL correct statements.
You will get zero marks for this question if you (i) do not identify all of the correct statements or (ii) include a
statement that is incorrect.

A. Y is a quantitative variable.

B. Z is a categorical variable.

C. X and Y are both categorical variables.

D. Y and Z are both quantitative variables.

E. X, Y and Z are all categorical variables.

F. X is a categorical variable and Z is a quantitative variable.

G. None of the above statements are correct.

(2 marks)

2. Very big numbers can be difficult to write down. However, using scientific notation (or exponential notation)
can make this much easier. Let us consider a simple example. Note that 102 = 10 × 10 = 100 and 7 × 100 = 700.
Therefore we can write
700 = 7 × 100 = 7 × 102 .
Writing 700 as 7 × 102 is known as writing 700 using scientific notation. Similarly, we can write 3, 000 = 3 × 103
and 3, 500 = 3.5 × 103 . Now, complete the following questions on the next page.
 (a) It is estimated that the number of atoms in a human body that weighs 70kg is

7, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000.

Write down this number using scientific notation.

(2 marks)
(b) Now, enter the number in (a) in its long form (i.e. the ‘7’ followed by all the zeroes) into an empty
Excel worksheet cell and hit ENTER. Write down exactly what is now stored in that cell (this is how Excel
represents numbers using scientific notation). NOTE: To ensure that you will be provided with the
number you have entered in scientific form (that is, displayed using scientific notation) do the following
(i) right-click, using the mouse, on the cell you entered the number into (ii) select Format Cells... (iii)
then click on the Number tab, select Scientific and press OK. (2 marks)

(c) A Googol is an extremely large number. In fact, it can be written down as the number 1 followed by 100
zeroes (the approximate number of cells given in (a) was the number 7 followed by just 27 zeroes). Write
down this number (a Googol) using scientific notation. (1 mark)

(d) There exists a number x such that x! is reasonably close to a Googol. For this question you will need
Excel to work out some factorials that equate to extremely large numbers (look up how to do this either on
the internet or via some other source). You will also need to be able to understand how Excel represents
numbers using scientific notation (e.g. see part (b) above). Which of the following choices below is the
closest to a Googol? To answer this, simply circle the letter corresponding to the best answer.

A. 68!
B. 69!
C. 70!
D. 71!
(5 marks)

3. In the Week 1 lectures we considered the 27 club which includes famous musicians who died at the age of 27.
More information and a list of at least some members can be found at the website http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/27_Club. In recent times inclusion into the 27 club has been broadened to include famous actors and
other artists.
To answer this question, please complete the empty cells of the table below (at least a table that resembles this
table in your submission). There is one line for each famous name and the first one, Amy Winehouse, has been
completed for you. For example, Amy was a famous musician so she gets a under the question ‘Was a famous
musician or actor? ’. She was also 27 when she died so she also gets a for the second question. Now, because
she was both a famous musician and was 27 when she died, she is also a member of the 27 club hence the reason
for the for the final question. When completing the rest of the table, use an 7to indicate that the person is
not a ‘yes’ for any of these questions (e.g. did not die at the age of 27 years).
 Name Died at 27? Was a famous musician or actor? A member of the 27 club?
Amy Winehouse
Mia Zapata
Jonathan Brandis
Heath Ledger
Lyman Bostock, Jr.
Anton Yelchin
Tupac Shakur
(6 marks; 1 mark for each correct line (not including the line for Amy Winehouse))

4. On February 18, 2011 the New York Times published an opinion piece called Empire at the End of Deca-
dence 1 which was critical of the current state of affairs in the United States. Also included was an interesting
table which is provided as Table 2 which is at the end of these question sheets.
This table provides many indices that may used to gauge the overall ‘well being’ or performance of a nation
(only some nations are represented). The actual table has a color coding where a dark red shade indicates that
a nation is performing poorly according the associated index. You can find the full color graphic on LMS.

Index Are High or Low values Ranks

considered good? Spain Greece Portugal United States

Income inequality

Unemployment rate

Level of Democracy

Gallup Global Wellbeing Index

Food Insecurity

Life Expectancy at Birth High 1 2 3 4

Prison Population (per 100,000)

Math Scale Score

Science Scale Score

Table 1: Table to completed as part of Question 4.

For this question, for simplicity we will consider only four countries which are the last four listed in Table 2.
For parts of this question you will need to fill in the empty spaces of Table 1.

(a) Using the shadings as a guide, determine whether a high or low value for a particular index is considered
good and write this down in the appropriate position in Table 1. For example, a high value for Life
Expectancy at Birth is considered good. This has been noted for you in the table and to complete this
question you need to do this for the remaining indices.
(3 marks all correct; 2 marks for 1 or 2 incorrect; 1 mark for 3 or 4 incorrect; 0 marks otherwise)
(b) We will now rank the four countries from 1st to 4th for each index based on the value recorded for that
index. A country will receive the number 1 rank if it scored the best for that index. The number 2 rank
if it scored the second best and so on. If two countries have the same index value, then we will
give both the average of the two associated ranks. For example, suppose that two countries tie for
first place. then the top two ranks should be given to these countries. To do this, we will give them both
the number (1 + 2)/2 = 1.5 rank. Similarly, if two countries tie for second and third, then they will both
receive a rank of (2 + 3)/2 = 2.5 and so on. To get you started the ranks for the Life Expectancy at Birth
index are already in the table. Spain received the number 1 rank because, of the four countries we are
considering, it had the highest value and we have indicated that high values are good for this index. Now
complete Table 1 for the remaining indices.
(7 marks comprised of 1 mark for each correct line of ranks)
1
See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/opinion/19blow.html
 (c) We will now add up all of the ranks for each country. For example, for Spain we will add up all of the
ranks in the column denoted ‘Spain’ to obtain a single total sum of ranks. Do this for each country and
provide the totals below (write the number above . . . . . . . . . as appropriate for each country):

Total sum of ranks for Spain = . . . . . . . . .

Total sum of ranks for Greece = . . . . . . . . .
Total sum of ranks for Portugal = . . . . . . . . .
Total sum of ranks for the United States = . . . . . . . . .

(4 marks comprised of 1 mark for each correct total rank)

(d) Now use the total sum of ranks above to determine which country, or countries, ranks the worst overall
(you must only use the numbers in part (4c) to answer this question) out of the four countries considered.
Which country, or countries, is it and why? Does it agree with the ordering of nations provided in Table
2? (3 marks)

5. Without using a calculator or computer (i.e. you must derive your answer to this question by hand), show that
for a population size of 10, then what is the total number of different simple random samples of size 3? You
will need to consult the lectures to work out how to do this. To get full marks for this question you must
present clear workings that show how you arrived at your answer. (5 marks)
Table 2: A copy of the full nations table to be used for Question 4.