Exam 11: Performance Evaluation Revisited: a Balanced Approach

Evaluate the following generalization(s), identifying sample, population, attribute of interest, and the extent to which the claims involved are knowable. Consider carefully the size and diversification of the sample and the extent to which the population differs or may differ from the sample; remember, what's important is that the sample be representative. Well, I did rotten in Algebra I last semester, so I expect I'll do poorly in the rest of the math classes I'll have to take.

Evaluate the following analogical argument: According to a 2008 National Safety Council study, hunting has the lowest rate of injury of the 22 most popular recreational activities. Get this: Badminton, yes, badminton! Four times as many injuries as hunting.

Consider the following passage: Julia sells exotic birds. She has placed four orders with wholesale bird supplier Papagayo Co., and all of them have been filled with healthy birds. Lately, however, some wholesale competitors have been trying to get her to order from them. But, when it's time to make the next order, she decides she's better off with Papagayo because she's pretty sure she'll get healthy birds. (Do not assume that you know anything about birds or the bird business.) If Julia had placed seven orders with Papagayo with the same result, her argument would be

Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text. Studies indicate that close to 85 percent of university professors are liberal Democrats. It only stands to reason, therefore, that if you want to get a job as a college instructor, register as a Democrat.

Make this inductive (statistical) syllogism into a strong argument by supplying an appropriate premise or conclusion: Dennis plays trumpet in the marching band at Yale, so he probably doesn't have a girlfriend.

Gwen plays basketball and soccer and has won many awards for the two sports. She thinks she should learn a new sport. She expects to be good at it, given her performance in the other sports. Would her argument be stronger, weaker, or neither if the sports she excelled at were tennis and badminton, but planned to learn soccer?

Consider the following passage: Julia sells exotic birds. She has placed four orders with wholesale bird supplier Papagayo Co., and all of them have been filled with healthy birds. Lately, however, some wholesale competitors have been trying to get her to order from them. But, when it's time to make the next order, she decides she's better off with Papagayo because she's pretty sure she'll get healthy birds. (Do not assume that you know anything about birds or the bird business.) If all the preceding orders had been for parrots, then her argument would be stronger if the new order was for

Evaluate the following analogical argument: Hey, Coach! I know somebody good for our volleyball team. Her name is Stacy, and she hasn't played much volleyball, but she's a great basketball player.

A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or B) in analyzing the passage, do the following: a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue. b. Identify what kind of study it is. c. Describe the control and experimental groups. d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups. e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily limited to uncontrolled variables. f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report. A study of 546 men in New Zealand who were identified as leukemia patients between 1979 and 1983 suggests that electrical workers are at increased risk of developing this cancer. Each man was matched with four other men from New Zealand's cancer registry. The study found a significant excess of leukemias among those electrical workers who had been employed as electronic equipment assemblers (4 cases, where only 0.5 would have been expected) and radio and television repairers (7 cases, where only 1.5 would have been expected). The study was conducted by N. E.Pearce and his colleagues at the Department of Community Health, Wellington Clinical School, and National Health Statistics Centre in Wellington, New Zealand.In a second study, Washington State epidemiologist Samuel Milham, Jr., obtained the death certificates for 95 percent of the 296 deceased Washington members of the American Radio Relay League (amateur radio operators) and 86 percent of the 1,642 deceased California members.Twenty-four of the deaths were due to leukemia; 16 of these were of the myeloid class-nearly triple the 5.7 deaths that would have been expected from this type of leukemia.Milham acknowledges that the difference might be attributable to chance but points out that three other studies have revealed a tendency toward a relative increase in the acute myelogenous type of leukemia in electrical workers.-Adapted from Science News

Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text. Fund-raising director for a public radio station: "I know that our music director gets hysterical when we play a lot of tired stuff like the 1812 Overture and the Grieg piano concerto. But go back and look at our most successful fund drives; every big day has been a day heavily loaded with those 'classics.'"

Consider the following passage: Julia sells exotic birds. She has placed four orders with wholesale bird supplier Papagayo Co., and all of them have been filled with healthy birds. Lately, however, some wholesale competitors have been trying to get her to order from them. But, when it's time to make the next order, she decides she's better off with Papagayo because she's pretty sure she'll get healthy birds. (Do not assume that you know anything about birds or the bird business.) The premise-analogue in the passage is

Evaluate the following generalization(s), identifying sample, population, attribute of interest, and the extent to which the claims involved are knowable. Consider carefully the size and diversification of the sample and the extent to which the population differs or may differ from the sample; remember, what's important is that the sample be representative. "How come the people in these big motor homes always have a couple of midget dogs with them," Jasper wonders.

Make this inductive (statistical) syllogism into a strong argument by supplying an appropriate premise or conclusion: A vast number of people who care about sustainability have a vegetable garden, so Scott probably does, too.

Consider the following passage: Julia sells exotic birds. She has placed four orders with wholesale bird supplier Papagayo Co., and all of them have been filled with healthy birds. Lately, however, some wholesale competitors have been trying to get her to order from them. But, when it's time to make the next order, she decides she's better off with Papagayo because she's pretty sure she'll get healthy birds. (Do not assume that you know anything about birds or the bird business.) If we don't know what kind of bird she's about to order, we have the strongest argument if the previous orders were

Analyze the following study according to the criteria set by your instructor: "Barbara Sherwin, director of a research team at McGill University, found that a small quantity of the male hormone testosterone, in addition to estrogen, led to a spicier sex life for some postmenopausal women. Twenty-two of the McGill team's subjects were given 150 milligrams a month of testosterone with estrogen, 11 were given estrogen alone, and 11 took placebos. The testosterone group reported more desire and arousal and more frequent sexual thoughts than did the women in the other two groups. Though 17 percent of the testosterone recipients developed mild facial hair, this side effect receded when the dosage was reduced." -Elsie Rosner, Physician's Weekly, reported in Reader's Digest

Evaluate the following argument in accordance with the criteria discussed in the text. Sharon has observed that her teacher sometimes seems to be in a bad mood and speculates why. "Well," she thinks, "it seems to happen only when people haven't done their assignments. That must be it."

Evaluate the following generalization(s), identifying sample, population, attribute of interest, and the extent to which the claims involved are knowable. Consider carefully the size and diversification of the sample and the extent to which the population differs or may differ from the sample; remember, what's important is that the sample be representative. Ronald is driving across the country when his car develops a minor mechanical problem. He can fix the trouble himself, but he'll need a wrench of a size he doesn't have. He resolves to stop at the next Sears retail store he sees to purchase one. He's been in four or five Sears retail stores in the past, and all of them have carried automotive tools. So he is confident that all Sears retail outlets stock them.

Evaluate the following generalization(s), identifying sample, population, attribute of interest, and the extent to which the claims involved are knowable. Consider carefully the size and diversification of the sample and the extent to which the population differs or may differ from the sample; remember, what's important is that the sample be representative. Memo: "We interviewed Haddow and found that she could handle each of the problems we gave her. I recommend we hire her."

A) Provide an informal analysis of the following passage; or B) in analyzing the passage, do the following: a. Identify the causal hypothesis at issue. b. Identify what kind of study it is. c. Describe the control and experimental groups. d. State the difference in effect (or cause) between control and experimental groups. e. Identify any problems in either the study or the report of it, including but not necessarily limited to uncontrolled variables. f. State the conclusion you think is warranted by the report. Each year in the United States, a surgical procedure known as extracranial-intracranial arterial (EC/IC) bypass is done on three thousand to five thousand people who have had, or are at risk of, stroke. The operation, in which an artery on the scalp is attached to an artery on the brain to bypass a partial or total blockage, costs about $15 ,000. In a new study, researchers from the University Hospital in London, Ontario, examined 1,377 people who had recently had strokes or had signs of impending strokes. They randomly assigned 714 to get standard medical care and 663 to get EC/IC bypasses. The group that had the surgery subsequently had a slightly higher rate of stroke and death than the control group, according to the study. -Reported in the New England Journal of Medicine

In generalizing from a sample, in order to achieve an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points at a confidence level of about 95 percent, what's the smallest random sample we can get away with, regardless of the size of the population?