Testing Something, But I Don't Know What

Have returned from New York. The trip was good, definitely good. Didn't do much studying at all. Got back, studied about four hours total for an Intro Statistics test which was almost exactly like the review test the professor gave. Got a 98 as a score. Would have aced it, but I assumed the last problem was a "with replacement" and not a "without replacement" problem, which is a very important distinction in probability.

So, went back to class. Took a new quiz in the Intro Probability class taught by Mr. N. He's still quizzing over the same two chapters that he poorly taught before, and that quiz that he gave was a constipator. I can give you an example:

Suppose you purchase light bulbs from a factory. Your consignment of 50 light bulbus contains 2 defective light bulbs. Exactly how many light bulbs would you have to test before the probability of finding a defective light bulb exceeded 1/2?

This isn't a hard problem, really...but most of the class had probably never been given a problem like that one before. So I'm sure they were scratching their heads.

Ben, the guy who sits behind me, got a 3/15 on his last quiz. And I got a 14/15! I feel bad for Ben, who is certainly trying his best. Whereas there's a guy who just shows up on quiz days, who is doing just as badly, and I don't feel sorry for him.

Got the results back from Dr. S's test...which were weird. This was that weird test that was graded

total score = (number right) - 0.1*SQR(number wrong)

One person got seven right out of ten, and five got six right out of ten. I was one of the few who got six right. However, there was only one person who got a total score between six and seven, and only two getting between five and six. I got 6 right and one wrong, for a grand total score of 5.9.

As for grading: he doesn't know what he's going to do. His estimation was that anyone who got five problems right has a good chance at getting through Exam P. Myself, the score was a bit of a letdown because I'm such a competitive grade-grubber that I want to be the best student in the class, at all times. This is good, because it will teach me some humility.

We did learn some interesting information: how to stimulate a distruction with the RANDOM number generator that comes with Excel or some other programming language. It's just a question of using the inverse function of the CDF you want to simulate. This is the kind of information I'm looking for; something that will help me with math modeling.

Right now, I'm finding out that passing exams and getting good grades is not all that employers want to see. They want to make sure you know the computing languages: Microsoft Excel and Database, SAS, maybe some Virtual Basic. How I'm going to learn all of this stuff is beyond me. Of course, I could just lie to my employers and say I know it.

One of the persons in my stats class wondered what the ratio of males to females was in the actuary field. A UK Survey had the percentage of female actuaries to be about 24 percent of the total field, which I would say is fairly accurate...one out of every four actuaries is female, and that ratio is moving slowly towards 50-50.