Statistics for Social Sciences
Pre-Test Questions
Course Introduction
Statistics for Social Sciences introduces students to the fundamental concepts and methods of statistical analysis as applied to social science research. The course covers descriptive statistics, probability, sampling techniques, hypothesis testing, correlation, regression, and the interpretation of data within the context of social phenomena. Emphasizing both theoretical understanding and practical application, students learn to critically evaluate statistical information, design experiments and surveys, and use statistical software to analyze real-world data relevant to fields such as sociology, psychology, political science, and economics. By the end of the course, students gain the skills necessary to draw meaningful conclusions from data and support evidence-based decision-making in the social sciences.
Recommended Textbook
Social Statistics for a Diverse Society 8th Edition by Chava Frankfort Nachmias
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614 Verified Questions
614 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: The What and the Why of Statistics
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following terms is considered a level of measurement?
A)Ordinal
B)Interview
C)Questionnaire
D)Population
Answer: A
Q2) Identify the independent variable,the dependent variable,and the unit of analysis in the following hypothesis: In the United States,fewer blacks than whites own their home as opposed to rent their home.
Answer: Independent variable = race;dependent variable = tenancy;and unit of analysis = individuals
Q3) Which of the following are continuous variables?
A)Time
B)Length
C)Number of employees
D)Income
Answer: A,B
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Chapter 2: The Organization and Graphic Presentation of Data
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Sample Questions
Q1) In a sample of 500 respondents,men account for 20% of all observations in the sample.What is the total number of females in the sample?
A)100
B)200
C)300
D)400
Answer: D
Q2) About 13 percent of survey respondents in a sample reported that they do not attend religious services regularly.About what proportion of respondents did not attend religious services regularly?
A)13
B).13
C)87
D).87
Answer: B
Q3) Which graphic device would be most appropriate to display information about "The sex ratio at birth - that is,the ratio to the number of males to the number of females - is 1.05 in the United States"?
Answer: A bar graph or pie chart
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Chapter 3: Measures of Central Tendency
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Sample Questions
Q1) Consider the following distribution of scores: 7,7,9,10,12.Which score corresponds to the 50th percentile in this distribution?
A)7.0
B)9.0
C)8.5
D)12
Answer: B
Q2) The ______ is the appropriate measure of central tendency for nominal variables.
A)mode
B)median
C)mean
D)percentile
Answer: A
Q3) When the mean is higher than the median (or positioned to the right of the median),the distribution is positively skewed.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 4: Measures of Variability
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Sample Questions
Q1) Calculate the values of the mean for the following sub-sample: 24,27,35,31,21,22,28,18,25,24,36,20.
Q2) The quantities that are needed to calculate IQV are: the number of categories and the sum of all percentages in the distribution.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The index of qualitative variation can vary from
A)-1.00 to 0.00.
B)0.00 to 0.50.
C)0.00 to 1.00.
D)-1.00 to 1.00.
Q4) The range is based on only one score.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The box plot of a perfectly symmetrical distribution will have the box at the centre of the range as well as the median in the center of the box.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Calculate the range for the following sub-sample: 2,7,4,4,1,2,2,3,1,2,4,5.
Page 6
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Chapter 5: The Normal Distribution
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Sample Questions
Q1) The annual salaries of employees in a large company are normally distributed with a mean of $50,000 and a standard deviation of $20,000.What percent of people earn between $45,000 and $65,000?
Q2) Considering the properties of the normal curve,if we know the mean and standard deviation,we are then able to calculate the ______ under the curve between any score and the mean.
A)range
B)area
C)mean
D)mode
Q3) Scores for an exam are normally distributed with a mean of 235 and a standard deviation of 52.Then the cut-off point for the top 30% is 270.
A)True
B)False
Q4) A normal distribution represented in standard Z scores,with
A)mean = 0 and standard deviation = 1.
B)mean = 1 and standard deviation = 0.
C)mean = 0 and standard deviation = 0.
D)mean = 1 and standard deviation = 1.
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Chapter 6: Sampling and Sampling Distributions
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Law School Admission Test (LSAT)is designed so that test scores are normally distributed.The mean LSAT score for the population of all test-takers in 2005 was 154.35 with a standard deviation of 5.62.If the LSAT scores were not normally distributed,would the sampling distribution of the mean be a normal distribution if the sample size was 100?
Q2) 0,3,6,9 is a sample of the population 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.
A)True B)False
Q3) Explain the central limit theorem.
Q4) The probability of rolling an even number with a six-sided,equally weighted die is A)1/3.
B)1/2.
C)1/6.
D)3/6.
Q5) Provide the appropriate symbols for the following parameters: mean,proportion,standard deviation,and variance.
Q6) What is the major drawback of using the proportionate stratified sample?
Q7) What is the difference between a parameter and a statistic?
Q8) How is probability sampling useful?
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Chapter 7: Estimation
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Sample Questions
Q1) Using the normal distribution,we know that ______ % of all random sample means will fall within ±1.96 standard errors of the true population mean.
A)68
B)95
C)99
D)100
Q2) What is the goal of most research?
A)To support the null hypothesis
B)To find the population parameter
C)To seek a sample
D)To determine the confidence interval
Q3) In a survey sample of 1000 respondents,the mean annual salary is $32,245,with a standard deviation of 4021.54.Calculate a 99% confidence interval for these data.
Q4) In a survey sample of 83 respondents,about 30.1 percent of the sample work less than 40 hours per week.Calculate a 68% confidence interval for the proportion of persons who work less than 40 hours per week.
Q5) Provide a substantive interpretation of the following 99% confidence interval: (.25,.41).
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Chapter 8: Testing Hypotheses
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Sample Questions
Q1) Two sample hypothesis testing assumes that the samples are A)independent of each other.
B)not randomly selected.
C)disproportionately large.
D)too small.
Q2) If the sample variances of two sets of people are 2.15 and 2.04 with sample sizes 50 each,then the estimated standard error is .29.
A)True
B)False
Q3) In calculating the standard error,the population standard deviation is estimated by
A) \( S_{Y} \) ,the population variance.
B) \( S_{Y} \) ,the sample standard deviation.
C) \( \sigma_{Y} \) ,the population variance.
D) \( \sigma_{Y} \) ,the sample standard deviation.
Q4) The probability at which the null hypothesis is rejected is referred to as A)alpha. B)beta.
C)Z score. D)p value.
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Chapter 9: Bivariate Tables
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Sample Questions
Q1) A bivariate relationship between two variables measured at the ordinal level or higher in which the variables vary in opposite directions is called a
A)strong link.
B)weak link.
C)positive relationship.
D)negative relationship.
Q2) What guides the construction and interpretation of bivariate tables?
A)The null hypothesis
B)The researcher(s)' theoretical question
C)The strength of the relationship
D)The number of cells in the table
Q3) When it is not apparent which variable is the independent variable or dependent variable,it is common for researchers to
A)take the average percentage across the rows.
B)average the percentages across the columns.
C)rely exclusively on the column percentages.
D)calculate both the row and column percentages.
Q4) What are the limitations of elaborations?
Q5) Provide an example of an intervening relationship and describe why it is so.
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Chapter 10: The Chi-Square Test and Measures of Association
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following illustrates a limitation of the chi-square test?
A)It is not based on theory.
B)It does not tell us about statistical significance.
C)It can be used for nominal order data only.
D)It is sensitive to sample size.
Q2) In a bivariate table,two variables are said to be statistically independent when,within each category of the independent variable,the percentage distributions of the dependent variable are
A)identical.
B)unequal.
C)descending.
D)ascending.
Q3) Suppose you obtain a chi-square statistic of 3.86.Are your results statistically significant if the critical value obtained from the distribution of chi-square is 6.63 with an alpha level of .01?
Q4) Why is it sometimes important to condition one's result by another variable?
Q5) What interpretation do we get if Kendall's Tau-b reaches a value of 1?
Q6) The larger the chi-square statistic,the smaller the p value.
A)True
B)False Page 12
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Chapter 11: Analysis of Variance
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Sample Questions
Q1) What can you say about the relationship if eta square is 0.85?
Q2) Imagine you are interested in whether there is a significant difference between the mean age of marriage across educational groups.If the critical value for an F statistic of 8.49 is 2.99,are these results statistically significant or not?
Q3) The between-group sum of squares and the within-group sum of squares compose the
a.aggregate group sum of squares.
b.ratio sum of squares.
c.total sum of squares.
d.mean level of variance.
Q4) ANOVA is a test of the null hypothesis of no difference between any of the means.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The formula, \( \sum n_{k}\left(\overline{Y_{k}}-\bar{Y}\right)^{2} \) ,calculates the ______ sum of squares.
A)between-group
B)within-group
C)total
D)perceived
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Chapter 12: Regression and Correlation
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Q1) Covariance
A)measures the linear relationship between two variables.
B)reflects both strength and direction of the relationship.
C)will be close to zero if the variables are closely related.
D)will be negative if the relationship is unrelated.
Q2) Regression
A)examines relationship between ordinal variables.
B)is a linear prediction model.
C)is bivariate if it involves one independent and one dependent variable.
D)is multiple if it involves two or more independent and one dependent variable.
Q3) Which of the following would be the least squares (best fitting)line?
A)The residual sum of squares is closest to zero.
B)r is equal to zero.
C)The residual sum of squares is closest to one.
D)The variance of y is large.
Q4) The residual is the difference between the predicted \( \hat{Y} \) and the observed Y,i.e. \( e=\hat{Y}-Y \) .
A)True
B)False
Q5) What role does the coefficient of determination play in regression?
Page 15
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