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ATHK1001 Assignment 2
Due date: 11:59pm Monday, 8 May 2023. Late penalty of 5% per calendar day applies,
with a 0 mark given if more than 10 days late.
Submission: All submissions are to be made via the ATHK1001 Canvas website.
Submissions will be checked for plagiarism. Artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT
that assist writing are not permitted.
Submitting the wrong file: If you discover before the closing date you submitted the
wrong file to Canvas, and let us know, you may be given the option to resubmit a corrected
version with a 50% penalty or the relevant lateness penalty, whichever is greater.
Word limit: Maximum 1000 words. There is no required minimum number of words. A
penalty of 10% will apply to papers that exceed this limit by more than 10%, a 20% penalty
if you exceed 20% of the limit, and 30% if you exceed the limit by 30%. Answers must be
complete sentences.
1. “Being an ATHK1001 student is positively correlated with knowing who
Dr. Bruce Burns is.”
1A. For 3 marks, state the three model types that can explain the correlation. Use X, Y, and Z
in your answer. Number the model types 1, 2, and 3.
1B. For 6 marks, for each of the causal models 1, 2, and 3 that you listed above, write a
complete sentence, describing the causal model using words from the quoted sentence
rather than using X’s and Y’s.
2. The null hypothesis could be true or it could be false. For each possibility, there
are two possible outcomes for a statistical test (see Modules:Wk 9 videos).
List four terms for the four outcomes (4 marks)
4A. For 2 marks, according to the Unit of Study outline, is attempting the final exam
necessary to pass ATHK?
4B. For 2 marks, explain your answer in less than 20 words.
4C. For 2 marks, according to the Unit of Study outline, is attempting the final exam
sufficient to pass ATHK?
4D. For 2 marks, explain your answer in less than 20 words.
5. Staying in a car and sealing all the cracks and airholes results in death within 24
hours. I will not get in a car and seal all the cracks and airholes, so I will not die
within 24 hours.
For 6 marks, rewrite the above in standard form, labelling the premises and conclusion.
6A. For 1 mark, to find Alex Holcombe, is going to the ATHK lecture theatre at 2pm Sydney
time on 11 May likely to be sufficient?
6B. For 2 marks, explain why.
7. Having Children Makes You Sick
The secrets to health were assessed by researchers who analyzed data from
over 200,000 people. Surprisingly, they found having children is a stronger
predictor of getting a respiratory infection than whether someone ate well.
“People without children had fewer colds than people with children,” stated the
researchers. “The effect is larger than for eating well.”
7A. For 2 marks, is the data referred to above likely to be from an experiment or an
observational study?
7B. For 2 additional marks, why?
7C. For 2 marks, describe the causal model the above text passage suggests. Write a
complete sentence and use words from the passage (no “X”s, “Y”s, or “Z”s).
8. If you ask at Manning House, you will receive a free mung bean pastry.
The above sentence may imply something about necessary and sufficient conditions for
getting a free mung bean pastry. For 4 marks, rewrite this sentence, correctly using the
words necessary and/or sufficient in the sentence.
9. People who enjoy racing video games die at a younger age, on average, than
people who do not enjoy racing video games. A journalist reporting about the
research implies that people should not play racing video games to reduce their
chance of an early death.
9A. For 2 marks, state the causal model suggested by the journalist.
9B. For 4 marks, describe an alternative causal model that plausibly could explain the
correlation. Write a complete sentence and use words from the passage (no “X”s, “Y”s, or
“Z”s).
9C. For 2 marks, explain why the model you provided in the previous answer is plausible.
10.
10A. In the cartoon above, the person expresses surprise that they lost their money in the
stock market. They were surprised because of a syllogism they articulated part of. For 3
marks, write out the syllogism they seemed to be thinking of in standard form, labelling the
premises and conclusion.
10B. For 2 marks, is the syllogism you wrote above suppositionally inescapable? Explain
your answer.
11. Australian universities with a photo of an East Asian student on their
homepages get more applications from Chinese students than other
universities. Mark Scott concludes that using photos of East Asian students
cause Chinese students to be more likely to apply.
For 8 points, describe an experiment to test Scott’s conclusion, mentioning the measures
and variables.
12. Contingency tables for the truth of two propositions are described in
Modules:Wk9. Consider the following truth table:
For 4 points, write two if-then sentences that together match the truth table.
13. A video by Alex on Canvas in Modules:Wk 9 explained a comic
that included jelly beans.
The null hypothesis was rejected for one color of jelly beans. For 4 marks, explain with your
own English words why we should not conclude that jelly beans cause acne.
14. Cuban burritos are not good. Because that burrito is Cuban, it’s not good.
For 3 marks, rewrite the above as a syllogism in standard form, labelling the premises and
conclusion.
15. A newspaper headline is: “Legumes that prevent the onset of dementia”.
The accompanying news article lists some legumes and their nutritional properties.
For 3 marks, does the headline make a correlational or a causal claim? Explain why you
think this.
16. In this unit an analysis technique was described that is sometimes useful to
separate out the effects of multiple measured variables. What is it? (2 marks)
17. Many headlines from epidemiological studies, such as about nutrition, are later
contradicted by subsequent research. Why is that? (4 marks)
18. Using an electroencephalographic electrode attached to drivers’ heads, a
trucking company assesses the drowsiness of employees while they are driving.
But the electrode test detects drowsiness in only one-third of the cases where
the driver was drowsy.
18A. For 3 marks, write a sentence about the sensitivity or specificity of the electrode test.
18B. When the driver was not drowsy, the electrode test was wrong (it indicated the
employee was drowsy) in 15% of cases. For 3 marks, based on the previous sentence, write
about the sensitivity or specificity of the electrode test.
19. The university cancels O-Week if there is a budget shortfall, and O-Week was
cancelled last year. There must have been a budget shortfall last year.
19A. For 6 marks, in 35 words or less rewrite as a syllogism, with premises and a
conclusion.
19B. For 4 marks, is the syllogism suppositionally inescapable? Explain why.
Total = 100 possible marks. (20% of total for the unit)
Formatting Recommendations
Use the font “Times New Roman”, 12-point size, and double-space all the lines.
Academic Honesty
Before submitting your paper you must complete the Online Academic Honesty
Educational Module provided by the University. Your assignment will be analysed for
evidence of plagiarism by the Turnitin software which will compare your paper against
other assignments, internet sources, and academic sources. To avoid plagiarism make sure
that you properly cite any source you use, and do not give your paper to any other student.