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© 2014 Pacific Crest
157
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S
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Ch 3
1
You are the campaign manager for your best friend who is running for Student Association
president. You want to get a handle on the voting patterns of the students. You decide that the
likelihood of voting is different for different groups of students. Identify at least six different
groups of students: why are they different, what issues and concerns do they have, what is the
probability distribution of voting for the candidates, and what is the randomness of whether
they are actually going to vote? Create a sampling scheme that will give you a level of comfort
that you know what the chances of winning are based upon the key positions that your friend
articulates in the campaign that aligns with the needs of the student body.
Notes
2
Many students truly believe that their grades are randomly assigned, e.g., “My grade is dependent
on what my teacher wants to give me.” Let’s assume that this is actually partially true. You are
therefore going to model your GPA based upon this idea of semi-randomness. For each course,
you are going to identify each and every component of the grade and build an equation of how
the grade is calculated. For each component, determine how much control you have over the
grade and then determine what control the teacher has by identifying the likelihood of the grade
variation and the chance that you have of getting each different value. For example, on the project
report you produce A- work from the rubric shown in the syllabus. You think the instructor has a
20% chance of giving you an A, a 40% chance of an A-; a 20% chance of B+; a 10% chance of a
B; a 5% chance of B-; and a 5% chance of a C+. Based upon random assigning of grades, what is
your expected GPA this semester and what are the probabilities of the different GPAs you could
receive? (In general, an A student has a GPA above 3.25; a B student between 2.75 and 3.25; a C
student between 2.0 and 2.75; a student on probation has a GPA of less than 2.0.)
Notes