1.-8. For each of the following descriptions, indicate the types of error present. Mark a type of error only if it is definitely present. Do not assume any more than what is explicitly mentioned in the problem. None, one, or more than one answer may apply.
1. During the summer, you always fill-up your car in the cool of the morning, rather than the heat of the afternoon. You do this because when fuel is hot, the reading on the fuel meter is consistently more than the amount of gas actually pumped.
2. You go to the emergency room of a hospital for treatment after having an accident on your bicycle in which you received severe lacerations. The technician takes a single test tube of your blood, to determine your blood type. Unfortunately, the technician neglects to put any label on this test tube. Several weeks later the hospital sends you a bill.
3. You phone TeX and attempt to register for Bio 301C. You are unsuccessful because the course is full.
4. The x-ray technician misreads your mammograms, missing a potentially malignant tumor.
5. IRS regulations allow you to enter whole dollar amounts on your income tax return, neglecting cents. In light of this regulation, you enter $456.42 on your tax return as $456.
6. To determine whether women with diets high in fat have an increased probability of getting breast cancer, a researcher follows a group of 129,050 women for a year, recording the percent fat in each women's diet, and recording which women got cancer. Unfortunately, at the end of the year, the researcher finds that his results are of limited usefulness, since only 8 women got breast cancer during the study.
7. You are interested in purchasing a new hand-tailored suit. Because of the expense, you ask two different tailors for bids. Both tailors take your measurements (waist, neck, etc.). The measurements made by these two tailors differ slightly.
8. A study done by Consumer Reports discovers that pharmacists occasionally make mistakes when dispensing medication. Sometimes, the medication inside a pill bottle is not what the label says is inside.
9. When faced with data that are intrinsically inadequate to distinguish between two alternative models, an unbiased scientist would:
10. According to the discussion in lecture and the course notes, which two of the following features of ideal data are most important in reducing bias?
Table of contents Chapter 7. Error is Unavoidable