Exam 1 Overview

Overview

This exam will consist of only multiple choice questions. It will be closed book and closed note. It will be taken in person. While you will have questions about R and about quantitative methods, you will not have to compute anything. It will be completed on paper rather than on a computer.

You’ll see questions on these topics:

  • Foundations of quantitative methods and workflows (4 questions)
  • R (8 questions)
  • Classification methods (4 questions)
  • Scales of measurement (7 questions)
  • US Census data (6 questions)
  • Tidy data principles (3 questions)

Instructions

  • Use a pen
  • Read every question slowly and read every option to every question.
  • Complete the exam and then fill out your answer sheet.

Study guide

  1. Suppose a data set is grouped into the following classes:
4 - 6
6.1 - 11
11.1 - 27
27.1 - 56

Which of the following methods could have been used to create classes? Select all that apply.

  1. Equal interval
  2. Quantile
  3. Natural breaks
  1. Suppose a data set is grouped into the following classes:
1.0 - 2.1
2.2 - 3.3
3.4 - 4.5
4.6 - 5.7
5.8 - 6.9

Which of the following methods could have been used to create classes? Select all that apply.

  1. Equal interval
  2. Quantile
  3. Natural breaks

  1. Explain the difference between nominal and ordinal scales of measurement and provide an example of each.

  2. Explain the difference between interval and ratio scales of measurement and provide an example of each.

  3. What is the scale of measurement of the variable “elevation”?

  4. What is the scale of measurement of the variable “income”?

  5. What is the scale of measurement of the variable “occupation”?

  6. Is temperature a continuous or discrete variable? Explain.

  7. Describe an example of a spurious correlation and how one could be used to propagate a false claim.

  8. Which census product should be used to study spatial patterns of relationship status (e.g., single, married, and divorced) in the year 2000 and why?

  9. Which census product should be used to study spatial patterns of education attainment in the year 2020 and why?

  10. What purpose do FIPS codes serve for US counties?

  11. Which of the following needs to be run in R every time R is started and you need to use a function from the sf package?

    1. update.packages(ask = FALSE)
    2. library(sf)
    3. install.packages("sf")

  12. Explain the difference between R’s library() function and its install.packages() function.

  13. What are two of R’s assignment operators?

  14. What is the purpose of the # character in R?

  15. Explain the purpose of R’s tigris package.

  16. Explain the purpose of R’s tidycensus package and how it differs from the tigris package.

  17. What is tidy data?

  18. What is the most likely reason for each of the following error messages, and what could be done to fix them?

Error: object 'x' not found
Error in library(suncalc) : there is no package called ‘suncalc’
Error in getMoonIllumination() :
  could not find function "getMoonIllumination"

  1. What is the purpose of using the ? character in R?

  2. Create an example of a data frame that is not tidy.