Discussion:
Q1. What are the characteristics of the normal curve? What human behavior, trait, or characteristic can you think of that is distributed normally?
Q2. Standard scores, such as z scores, allow us to make comparisons across different samples. Why?
Q3. Why is a z score a standard score, and why can standard scores be used to compare scores from different distributions with one another?
Q4. Compute the z scores for the following raw scores where X = 50 and the standard deviation = 5.
a) 55
b) 50
c) 60
d) 57.5
e) 46
Q5. Jake needs to score in the top 10% in order to earn a physical fitness certificate. The class mean is 78 and the standard deviation is 5.5. What raw score does he need to get that valuable piece of paper?
Q6. Who is the better student, relative to his or her classmates? Here's all the information you need to know...
Math
Class Mean 81
Class Standard Deviation 2
Reading
Class Mean 87
Class Standard Deviation 10
Raw Scores
Math Score Reading Score Average
Noah 85 88 86.5
Talya 87 81 84
z Scores
Math Score Reading Score Average
Noah
Talya