I need HELP with College Math

[corarose]

I am behind in my Math class because I was off for the first 2 weeks of my class and I have to play catch up real fast.
We have a test tomorrow and I need to pass it.

Any suggestions on how to memorize these terms and what they mean by morning?
MEAN, MEDIAN, MODE, FIRST QUARTILE, THIRD QUARTILE.

[wyldwolf]

1. Failed it twice, dropped it twice...finally passed it...

... so how can I help?

[corarose]

3. I memorized Median because of the Median in the road when driving

It means the number in the middle but I can't remember the others ones for the life of me.

I have been out of High School for over 20 years and I can't remember it that well.

[caledesi]

33. I took "Finite Math" and it was the ONLY subject I failed...well, a D

but that is failing to me.

I hate math!

[wyldwolf]

39. Math for the Liberal Arts Major...

[jenk]

2. passed only by cheating with a graphing calculator

I still can't figure out math at a 7th grade level! bah, who needs it!

[corarose]

6. We are allowed to use a calculator but I don't know which buttons to press

Back when I went to School in the olden days we didn't use a calculator we used an abacus.

How do I locate the keys for the median, mode, etc?

[dweller]

14. look for secondary function key

yellow 2nd key

then the keys will function in a different mode, usually the lower of the two listed on the key.

better yet, take the class at nite like i did (2nd attempt) and you'll find yourself with many 'non-traditional' (read older) students.
is this algebra II?

good luck
dp

[corarose]

18. They cut the nights and weekend classes out at my College.

You can take the Culinary Classes at night but they are not offering theory classes at night.

[liberalnurse]

23. Oh, you are in deep shit.....

But I think the DU'ers here will pull ya through.

[Ohio Dem]

27. Unless it's a very large list, it's easier without the calculator.

And the teacher will probably want to see your work, anyway. If they want you to use a graphing calculator, they will show you how.

And to find median and the like, you would have to have a pretty good (expensive) calculator in the first place. Most normal scientific calcs don't do this. You need a statistical calc for this, and I'm not even sure most of them have median and quartile buttons.

[Brucey]

4. Yes,

The mean is "mean" because it uses every score... the median, like on the highway, is right in the middle (be sure the scores are lined up in order, then pick the one in the median), the mode is the MOST often occurring score. Quartiles are just like quarters, fourths. Line up the scores, divide them into fourths... hey, wait a minute, am I being put on here? Or did I help?

[corarose]

7. That helps!

I also have to make a graph and figure out how to divide the graph up.

[Booberdawg]

5. There should be a glossary of terms in the book

or in the chapter you are assigned. Write them out it helps to remember that way.

[corarose]

10. The book doesn't have a glossary

It's a book that you put in a binder and it doesn't have a glossary which is weird. The damn book cost me $70.00 bucks and it's put together like someone went to Kinkos and ran off a bunch of pages.

[grytpype]

8. This is COLLEGE math?

Holy living pig squat.

[Ohio Dem]

11. Sounds like the first chapter of a Stats class.

This is pretty basic stuff, but if you've never seen it before, you wouldn't know how to do it. I doubt many high school math courses teach it.

But this is probably the first chapter. I'm sure it will get more in depth.

[LWolf]

41. Fourth grade in CA.

not the quartiles. But range, mean, median, and mode are required 4th grade curriculum in the state of CA. I've been reviewing it with my 5th and 6th graders this week.

[Ohio Dem]

9. Quartiles:

1. Find the median. This is the middle number once the list has been put into numerical order.* It breaks the data into halves. Find the median of the upper half. This is the upper quartile. Find the median of the lower half. This is the lower quartile. The quartiles and the median break the data into quarters, thus the word "quartile."

*If you have an even number of data entries, the median is the mean of the two middle numbers. (Add 'em up and divide by two.)

Mean: Add up all the numbers in the list and divide by the number of data entries. People often refer to this number of average.

Mode: The most common data entry. There may be more than one mode.

[corarose]

12. Is this how I find the mode?

I will give an example and tell me If I am right.

36 35 34 33 32 36 31 33 35 34 38 39 33 34 40 33

The mode would be 33

[McDiggy]

15. it's whatever number occurs the most

So I think you're right, I"m too tired and lazy to actually check, I see lots'a 33s though...

[Ohio Dem]

17. There are four 33's.

Unless I miscounted, that's the most common number. 33 is the mode.

Mode is much easier to find if you put the numbers in numerical order because all the 33's are listed together. Makes it easier to count. You gotta put 'em in order anyway to find the median and quartiles.

[KamaAina]

28. Correct! Now let's find the mean and median.

The mean (sometimes called arithmetic mean) is simply the average of the set of numbers: the sum of all the numbers divided by the size of the set (in this case, 16, since there are 16 different numbers).

Thus:

36 + 35 + 34 + 33 + 32 + 36 + 31 + 33 + 35 + 34 + 38 + 39 + 33 + 34 + 40 + 33 = 556

556 / 16 = 34.75

The mean is 34.75.

The median is the number in the "middle" of the set, when it's in order from low to high.

We reorder the numbers in the set:

31, 32, 33, 33, 33, 33, 34, 34, 34, 35, 35, 36, 36, 38, 39, 40

The median is the average of the 8th and 9th numbers in this list. In this case, both the 8th and 9th numbers happen to be 34, so the median is 34.

31, 32, 33, 33, 33, 33, 34, 34, || 34, 35, 35, 36, 36, 38, 39, 40

The difference between mean and median can be an importnat one when it comes to "lies, damned lies, and statistics", because the mean can easily be skewed by a few very high or low numbers (such as home prices or annual incomes).

A set of home prices:

150,000 150,000 200,000 200,000 250,000 3,000,000

If you're claiming that this market is overpriced, you'll say, "The average home price (the mean) is over $650,000!", while if you're a luxury homebuilder who wants to make the opposite claim, you can say, "Relax. The median home price is only $200,000."

[corarose]

29. How did you get the $650,000?

:kick:

[Ohio Dem]

34. The average weight of 4 flies and one 200 pound person

is 40 pounds. That's why Bush always uses "average" when he's talking about the tax cuts. Sometimes the average isn't really average at all. It depends on which definition you use, and using the word "average" (as in arithmetic mean) for "typical" is usually misleading. Sometimes the modal value or the median value is closer to the truth.

[McDiggy]

13. He's a pathetic attempt/

I must warn you, these are real stretches.

Median - Think of the middle of the road on a highway. No matter what it is the middle; although the road on one side may be greater than the road on the other at times (say it is three lane one on side and two on the other) it is always the thing in the MIDDLE CHRONOLOGICALLY.

Mean- Teachers are mean - teachers give you grades (i.e. 67%) or your average. So when you think of mean, think of teachers giving you grades, which are AVERAGES.

First quarter - Think of money - First=1 quarter= quarter. How much is a quarter? 25. So think of the 1st quarter as being up to the top 25%

Third Quartile - same as first, exept think of third=3. 3 quarters are 75, so 3rd quartile is up to the top 75% ( or between the 25th and 50th percentile, whatever.)

Mode? I dunno.

I'm in Pharmacy school and every week we have to memorize about 150-200 new medical terms. What I do is make little flash cards with the term on one side and the meaning on the other. Just go through them in your spare time quizzing yourself, eventually you will develop a mental image of all of the terms, and, more importantly, you won't forget them.

[corarose]

16. I own stock in Index Cards

Just kidding but they come in handy and anytime I see them on sale for 4 for $1.00 I buy them in gross.

Damn that's alot of memorizing that you are doing.

We have to memorize about 35 French terms each week. I feel sorry for you that's a ton of work.

You explained it well also.

[Ohio Dem]

20. Median: Middle of the road:

That is exactly how I describe it to my students when I teach this.

I know most of them will see this stuff if they go to college, so I figure it's as good a thing to teach them as anything, once we're through with the stuff in the course of study. I think I'm the only one in my district that does.


Now, that thing about teachers being mean: We're not. And if we are, it's the kids' fault, the little monsters. You have detention. :evilgrin:

[Brucey]

19. Okay, the graph.

I think you mean a frequency distribution. You just make a number line and put a mark above each number for every time it occurs in the list of data. You then will have a graph in which the height indicates how often a score occurs. The mode is just the highest point on the graph. The median is found by counting from the bottom up (count every score) until you get to the middle one. The mean is found by adding all the scores then dividing by how many there are. On the graph, it will be pulled toward the right or the left if there are lots of scores in that direction. Is that what you mean by dividing up a graph?

[Ohio Dem]

24. If a graph is necessary, it's probably a box plot.

Also called a box-and-whisker plot. Check this out:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Box-and-WhiskerPlot.html

Basically, you plot the median and two quartiles over or beside a number line. Make a box around them. Plot the biggest and smallest numbers that aren't outliers and connect those points to the box with "whiskers." Plot the outliers and don't connect them to anything.

Do you have to deal with outliers (or numbers that seem to large or too small for the rest of the data)? If so, we can talk about how to find them.

[corarose]

30. Thanks

That is the type of graph that we have to make.

[corarose]

26. The Graph is our homework

The test we have to add up the numbers and answer the questions.

[Lefty48197]

21. Write the answers on your hand

ever since Reagan, it has been ok to do any amount of cheating to attain victory. It's now the American way. Go foward proud Patriot, and CHEAT!

[JVS]

22. Ok, here goes

Mean--- what we normally call the average, is the sum elements devided by the number of elements. I know no clever way to remember this, aside from the fact that something described as being of mean quality is of ordinary quality

Median--- think of the highway median. If you arrange a list of numbers from smallest to largest, the median is the number in the middle. so the median of (1 5 83 938 8387) is 83. If the list of numbers does not have a middle element because it has an even number of elements then the median is defined as the average (mean) of the two numbers closest to the center. The median of (1 49 392 400 495 678) is 396.

Mode--- think of pie ala Mode, which means pie in the usual manner according to my old algebra teacher. The mode is the number in a list that is listed most.

First quartile is the area from the 75-100th percentile. Think of it like the top quarter of the class.

Third quartile is the area from the 25-50th percentile, top half of the bottom half of the class.

[kixot]

25. Here are some resources to help you through the rest of the semester:

http://www.probability.net/
http://it.e-technik.uni-ulm.de/World/Teaching/ce/handout/hilf16.pdf
http://www.math.csusb.edu/faculty/stanton/m262/probstat.html
http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek4/statistics.htm
http://www.imstat.org/
http://www.math.uah.edu/stat/
http://cs.hbg.psu.edu/ic/linkpage.html
http://www.cas.lancs.ac.uk/glossary_v1.1/main.html

[corarose]

31. Thanks

The websites will come in handy.

[Ohio Dem]

35. This is a good one, too. Especially for definitions.

Although it can get pretty deep sometimes.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/

[corarose]

32. Thanks Everyone!

I can always count on DU for help because of how intelligent everyone is around here.

[Ohio Dem]

36. Hey, no problem.

I'm always looking for an excuse to use the phrase "interquartile range." And if you'd have asked about outliers, I would have.

Hey, I managed to get it in anyway, didn't I?

[DemoTex]

37. 1. Get off DU

2. If you can't learn the meaning of five simple statistical terms by tomorrow AM, drop the course. If that is all the test is, you are lucky.

Want to make an "A" in math or stats? Go to class. Work all the problems at the end of each chapter (not just the ones the prof assigns). Treat the problems like a game. Make it fun. I got through engineering calculus, diffy-q, statistics, and many more math courses at Georgia Tech with a near 4.0 by doing just that.

Good luck!

[leftofthedial]

38. who doesn't?

:shrug:

:-)

[roguevalley]

40. I'll take a guess, pumpkin. I just retired from teaching 25

years and its AMAZING how fast it all went away.

mean: add it all, divide the total by number of numbers added.
mode: the numbers that repeat in a list of numbers: 2,2,4,2,3,4 would
make 2 and 4 the mode

mean: uh, I forgot. Could be the mean. Check your glossary. its one or the other.

quartiles ... I believe that they are groups of numbers divided into four parts, like the calendar. I could be wrong. Sorry, honey. my books are in a u-haul storage locker pending give away to newbie teachers. Smooches!