CHAPTER 3, SECTION 1, DAY 1 (Reiner)

Date: ___________________________

Preliminary questions when comparing relationships:

Response variable:

Explanatory variable:

Example 3.1: Alcohol has many effects on the body. One effect is a drop in body
temperature. To study this effect, researchers give several different amounts of alcohol to
mice, then measure the change in each mouse’s body temperature in the 15 minutes after
taking the alcohol.

What is the explanatory variable?

What is the response variable?

Example 3.2:

Jim wants to know how the median SAT Math and Verbal scores in the 51 states (including DC)
are related to each other.

What are the explanatory/response variables?

Julie looks at some data. She thinks that she can predict a state’s median SAT Math scores by
knowing its median SAT Verbal score.

What are the explanatory/response variables?

Caution:

Scatterplots:

Example 3.3: Some people use average SAT scores to rank state or local school systems. Why
may this not be proper?

Nonetheless, we think that __________________ will help explain ___________________. Therefore,

what are the explanatory/response variables?

In the next section, we’ll look at how to determine the relationship among our explanatory
and response variables. However, what relationship can you determine by looking at the
graph’s appearance?

Assignment:

p. 122 #3.1-3.35

p. 125 #3.6