Page 353 - Statistics for Dummies

Chapter 21: Ten Surefire Exam Score Boosters

In order to feel comfortable about formulas, follow these tips:
✓ Get into the right mind-set. Think of formulas as mathematical short-
hand and nothing more. All you have to do is be able to decipher them.
Oftentimes you’re allowed to bring a review sheet to your exam, or
you’ll be given a formula sheet with your exam, so you may not have to
make things harder by memorizing them.
✓ Understand every part of every formula. In order for any formula to be
useful, you have to understand all its components. For example, before
you can use the formula for standard deviation, you need to know what
and mean and what stands for. Otherwise it’s totally useless.
✓ Practice using formulas from day one. Use them to verify the calcula-
tions done in lecture or in your book. If you get a different answer from
what’s shown, figure out what you are doing wrong. Making mistakes
here is okay — you caught the problem early, and that’s all that counts.
✓ Whenever you use a formula to do a problem, write it down first and 337
then plug in the numbers in the second step. The more often you write
down a formula, the more comfortable you will be using it on an exam.
And if (heaven forbid!) you copy the formula down wrong, your instruc-
tor will be able to follow your error, which may mean some partial credit
for you!
Chances are, if you’ve learned some formulas in your class, you’re going to
need to use them on your exam. Don’t expect to be able to use formulas with
confidence on an exam if you haven’t practiced with them and written them
down many, many times beforehand. Practice when the problems are easy so
when they get harder you won’t have to worry as much.
Make an “If-Then-How” Chart
Quarterbacks always talk about trying to get the game to “slow down” for
them so they feel like they have more time to think and react. You want the
same thing when you take a statistics exam. (See, you and your NFL hero
really do have something in common!) The game starts slowing down for a
quarterback when he begins to see patterns in the way the defense lines up
against him, rather than feeling like every play brings a completely different
look. Similarly for you, the exam starts to “slow down” when the problems
start falling into categories as you read them, rather than each one appearing
to be totally different from anything you’ve ever seen before.

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