STA442/1008 Assignment 2

Quiz on Friday January 20

This assignment is based on Chapter 2 of the class notes and associated lecture material. You will do the job described below, and bring your log file and your list file to the quiz. Then you will be asked a few very simple questions, like how many cars in the sample are of European origin, or what is the standard deviation of the cars' lengths. The answers will all be numerical, and they will all be directly from your printout. The quiz will consist of your circling a few numbers and writing a few words on your printouts, and turning them in. It should only take a few minutes.

The file mcars3.data has four variables: country of origin (presumably the location of the head office), fuel efficiency in kilometers per litre, length in centimeters and weight in kilograms. Using SAS, make a frequency distribution of the categorical variable, and produce sample sizess, means and standard deviations for the quantitative variables. That's it.

Bring your log file and your list file to the quiz. You will hand both of them in. Here are a few suggestions and comments:

• Make sure your name is written on both your log file and your list file. Do not write anything else on the printouts before the quiz.
• Make sure the printouts are complete. It is smart to staple the pages together.
• You could get zero marks for the quiz if there are any error messages on your log file. Substantial marks will be deducted if there are warnings. Error messages mean there is something wrong, and it needs to be fixed before you proceed to statistical analysis. Usually, warnings indicate something wrong too, though in some cases you can tolerate warnings if you know why SAS is warning you and you are satisfied with the action it takes. But for this assignment, the rule is clear: No errors and no warnings.
• You must be absolutely sure that the log file and list file come from the same run. For us to check your work, the program on your log file must be exactly the program that generated your statistical output.
• This all sounds intimidating, but the objective is to keep you from losing a lot of marks for "small" mistakes that are actually big -- and avoidable.
• Of course you may edit the data file, but don't eliminate any cases.
• Don't delete your program; later assignments will build on it.