2025 Quiz #1: Wednesday, March 12
I realized that for Quiz #1, there are a lot of shorter readings. So I am only going to test through the first third of the Layard-De Neve book on Quiz #1. That is, you are responsible at this point for everything through Chapter 7, so that Quiz #2 will begin with Chapter 8, “Exploring Well-Being”.
Key resources for this Quiz are:
2025
The graphing question was Comparative Statics Exercise #3. See Well-Being Possibility Frontier/Indifference Curves AND The Corresponding Supply and Demand Graphs.
This was a tough exam. I thought people did well. Here is the letter grade translation for the multiple-choice part of Quiz #1, as if it were the only thing I had to go on at the end of the semester. It really wouldn’t be enough to go on at the end of the semester, so some numbers translate into something between two letter grades. The high score was 28—almost perfect. The low score was 10.
26–28 A
24–25 A-
23 A-/B+
21–22 B+
20 B+/B
18–19 B
17 B-/C+
16 C+
14–15 C
10–13 C-
You’ll notice there there wasn’t a big point difference between C and B. If your score translates to a C, you are well within reach of a B if you do well on other things. The quizzes do matter quite a bit, simply because scores on other assignments have much lower variances among those who do them. The weights in the syllabus are weights in the linear combination I used for the final score. The variance of each subscore also matters for how important it is.
I am required to make close to half of the final grades C+ or below, but I feel no obligation to give anything below a C-. With rare exceptions, I use D’s and F’s only for people who aren’t doing all the assignments.
The graphing question will take longer to grade, since I have to grade it by hand. My goal is by next Wednesday, but it might slip to by next Friday.
2023
Histogram for Quiz #1 (Remember that a lot of your grade is writing assignments. The quizzes are a modest percentage of your grade.)
Blog Posts and Articles to Read to Prepare for the Quiz
Each of the following has one multiple-choice quiz question. Most of them are of the form “Which of the following is NOT a quotation from …”
Push Through the Learning Pit (including watching the short Pema Chodron video)
There's One Key Difference Between Kids Who Excel at Math and Those Who Don't
The Most Effective Memory Methods are Difficult—and That's Why They Work
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia Can Prevent Major Depression
An Example of Ideology Leading to Bad Statistics and Social Injustice
Why a Low-Insulin-Index Diet Isn't Exactly a 'Lowcarb' Diet (Focus on (i) the interpretation of the DIETFITS study and (ii) the 2025 edits.)
Exorcising the Devil in the Milk (an example of trying to interpret less-than-perfect evidence, and of scatterplots)
Also, to help with the “Which of the following is NOT a quotation from …” style of question I often use, take a look at “Critical Reading: Apprentice Level”
The remainder of the exam will be
Multiple choice statistical algebra questions
multiple-choice questions (mostly of that form) on the first 1/3 of the Layard de Neve book (all of the first 7 chapters and everything before the first chapter)
one short answer question for which you need to be able to graph on another blank sheet the effect of a change on both the well-being possibility frontier/indifference curves diagram AND on the supply and demand diagram for an aspect of well-being. NOTE THAT YOU WILL NEED TO REMEMBER TO WRITE YOUR NAME ON THAT ANSWER ON THE SEPARATE BLANK SHEET!
You will be able to keep the exam itself. I only need the scantron sheets and your graphs. PLEASE WRITE THE ANSWERS YOU GAVE ON YOUR COPY OF THE EXAM. THAT WILL BE THE ONLY WAY FOR YOU TO FIGURE YOUR SCORE. I DON’T LIKE USING CANVAS TO REPORT SCORES BECAUSE CANVAS DOESN’T UNDERSTAND HOW I GRADE.