5th PERIOD

Class info

What is AP Statistics?

Students taking this course will have the opportunity to attempt the Advance Placement Exam at the end of the year. This gives the student the opportunity to gain college credit while still in high school!

AP Statistics is the high school equivalent of a one semester, introductory college statistics course.  In this course, students develop strategies for collecting, organizing, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from data.  Students design, administer, and tabulate results from surveys and experiments.  Probability and simulations aid students in constructing models for chance behavior.  Sampling distributions provide the logical structure for confidence intervals and hypothesis tests.  Students use a TI-83/84 graphing calculator, Fathom and Minitab statistical software, and Web-based java applets to investigate statistical concepts.  To develop effective statistical communication skills, students are required to prepare frequent written oral analyses of real data. Students will develop the following course skills in four main categories:

• Course Skill 1: Selecting Statistical Methods 

• Course Skill 2: Data Analysis

• Course Skill 3: Using Probability and Simulation

• Course Skill 4: Statistical Argumentation

Course Goals:

• Skills: produce convincing oral and written statistical arguments, using appropriate terminology, in a variety of applied settings.  

• Knowledge: Essential techniques for producing data (surveys, experiments, observational studies), analyzing data (graphical & numerical summaries), modeling data (probability, random variables, sampling distributions), and drawing conclusions from data (inference procedures – confidence intervals and significance tests)

• Habits of mind: become critical consumers of published statistical results by heightening their awareness of ways in which statistics can be improperly used to mislead, confuse, or distort the truth.