AP STATISTICS DOCUMENT UBD SAMPLE Q & A
AP Statistics Course Goal:
The goal of this course is to provide a year-long college-level statistics experience as outlined in the
curricular guide of the College Board’s Advanced Placement program. Students will be prepared to take the
Advanced Placement Statistics examination in May.
Organization of Course:
The course is organized into ten units of instruction within seven major content areas. (See attached
documents detailing each unit of instruction.)
The goal, as in any serious instruction on any topic, is to foster communication, instill the importance of a
healthy skepticism, and to always balance/examine our conclusions with a reality check. In particular, the
following guidelines are used in all areas of teaching and assessment throughout the course:
• Real-world data is used to foster active and meaningful learning;
• Statistical literacy and statistical thinking are developed as part of both instruction and assessment;
• Technology (graphing calculator and MINITAB on the computer) is a key component of
instruction, learning, and assessment;
• Conceptual understanding as well as critical thinking and analysis are developed throughout the
course.
• Reading and writing (some students aren’t used to this!) are daily required.
Note: We chose the textbook "Stats Modeling the World" not only for the excellent narrative, but
specifically for the emphasis upon "Think, Show, and Tell" as a guiding principle for both instruction and
assessment. The text was written specifically to follow the AP Syllabus as outlined by the College Board.
The textbook’s 27 chapters (within seven major content areas) are closely aligned with the essential AP
course content. In addition, we chose this text because of a desire to go with a somewhat different approach
to the reading than is normally found in college-level statistics textbooks. The narrative in Stats Modeling
the World is excellent and it even (gasp) employs humor from time to time as an instructional technique!
, AP STATISTICS DOCUMENT UBD SAMPLE Q & A
Instructional Methods:
The term that most aptly describes an Advanced Placement Statistics classroom is active engagement.
This is an activity-based course in which students are routinely involved in constructing their own
understanding of the required concepts and techniques of statistics. Through well-designed activities and
handouts, together with a moderate amount of large-group instruction, students learn appropriate statistical
techniques and a variety of ways to communicate them. The classroom activities of decision-making and
validating/justifying statistical hypotheses are a critical component of the course.
Although this course is taught within the mathematics department at Whitefish Bay High School, it is
actually interdisciplinary in nature and students are expected to read and write far more than they have yet
experienced in a “math” course. The writing is the all-important “tell” part of the “Think-Show-Tell”
trilogy that is the guiding principle of the textbook. Hence, detailed writing is the concluding piece of any
statistical process or investigation in the class, which mirrors the College Board’s focus upon statistics not
as a “set of recipes,” but as a way of thinking about and interpreting real-world data.
, AP STATISTICS DOCUMENT UBD SAMPLE Q & A
Regarding Technology:
All students use the TI-83 or TI-84 graphing calculator as an integral and daily part of each
assignment/assessment/project. By the time students have reached AP Statistics, they have had at least
three prior years of working with their graphing calculator, and for most, their comfort level with the
calculator is very strong at the beginning of this course. They have already had extensive experience with
graphing functions, determining an appropriate window, and finding max/min values and roots. In
addition, students are adept at working with tables, lists, matrices, and most regression options. They have
already had experience with most, if not all, features under STAT PLOT. Hence, a background introduction
to the graphing calculator is not necessary, but daily use and instruction on the TI-83/84 is nonetheless a
critical component of the course. For example, most students will not have had previous calculator
experience with hypothesis testing or confidence intervals and therefore direct instruction on the calculator
is needed for these and other topics throughout the course.
The class meets in the computer lab 10 to 15 days a school year and works directly with MINITAB on
assignments, investigative tasks, and both group and individual projects.
AP Exam Review and Post-Exam:
The course syllabus is designed to allow approximately two full weeks of review for the AP Exam.
Problems from many of the released previous AP exams are assigned. Some are assigned for homework,
while many others are done in class within the required timing guidelines. The free response questions are
graded using the published AP scoring rubrics. Solutions are then discussed and presented to the entire
class.
Following the AP Exam, students are assigned additional projects, generally in pairs or small groups. Class
presentations are required. (See additional notes at the end of this document detailing a project and two of
the Investigative Tasks.)
Primary Resources:
, AP STATISTICS DOCUMENT UBD SAMPLE Q & A
Primary Textbook (all students have this textbook)
Bock, Velleman, De Veaux. Stats Modeling the World. 2nd Edition. Pearson Education, Inc., 2007
ActivStats: (This is a multi-media program that supplements and extends the textbook above. It provides
extremely helpful worked-out examples, along with animated expositions of all major topics. Also included
are hundreds of additional exercises and data sets.)
Secondary Textbooks and Resource Materials
Yates, Moore, Starnes. The Practice of Statistics. 3rd Edition. W. H. Freeman and Company, 2008.
Moore, McCabe. Introduction to the Practice of Statistics. 3rd Edition. W. H. Freeman and Company, 1999.
AP Statistics Course Goal:
The goal of this course is to provide a year-long college-level statistics experience as outlined in the
curricular guide of the College Board’s Advanced Placement program. Students will be prepared to take the
Advanced Placement Statistics examination in May.
Organization of Course:
The course is organized into ten units of instruction within seven major content areas. (See attached
documents detailing each unit of instruction.)
The goal, as in any serious instruction on any topic, is to foster communication, instill the importance of a
healthy skepticism, and to always balance/examine our conclusions with a reality check. In particular, the
following guidelines are used in all areas of teaching and assessment throughout the course:
• Real-world data is used to foster active and meaningful learning;
• Statistical literacy and statistical thinking are developed as part of both instruction and assessment;
• Technology (graphing calculator and MINITAB on the computer) is a key component of
instruction, learning, and assessment;
• Conceptual understanding as well as critical thinking and analysis are developed throughout the
course.
• Reading and writing (some students aren’t used to this!) are daily required.
Note: We chose the textbook "Stats Modeling the World" not only for the excellent narrative, but
specifically for the emphasis upon "Think, Show, and Tell" as a guiding principle for both instruction and
assessment. The text was written specifically to follow the AP Syllabus as outlined by the College Board.
The textbook’s 27 chapters (within seven major content areas) are closely aligned with the essential AP
course content. In addition, we chose this text because of a desire to go with a somewhat different approach
to the reading than is normally found in college-level statistics textbooks. The narrative in Stats Modeling
the World is excellent and it even (gasp) employs humor from time to time as an instructional technique!
, AP STATISTICS DOCUMENT UBD SAMPLE Q & A
Instructional Methods:
The term that most aptly describes an Advanced Placement Statistics classroom is active engagement.
This is an activity-based course in which students are routinely involved in constructing their own
understanding of the required concepts and techniques of statistics. Through well-designed activities and
handouts, together with a moderate amount of large-group instruction, students learn appropriate statistical
techniques and a variety of ways to communicate them. The classroom activities of decision-making and
validating/justifying statistical hypotheses are a critical component of the course.
Although this course is taught within the mathematics department at Whitefish Bay High School, it is
actually interdisciplinary in nature and students are expected to read and write far more than they have yet
experienced in a “math” course. The writing is the all-important “tell” part of the “Think-Show-Tell”
trilogy that is the guiding principle of the textbook. Hence, detailed writing is the concluding piece of any
statistical process or investigation in the class, which mirrors the College Board’s focus upon statistics not
as a “set of recipes,” but as a way of thinking about and interpreting real-world data.
, AP STATISTICS DOCUMENT UBD SAMPLE Q & A
Regarding Technology:
All students use the TI-83 or TI-84 graphing calculator as an integral and daily part of each
assignment/assessment/project. By the time students have reached AP Statistics, they have had at least
three prior years of working with their graphing calculator, and for most, their comfort level with the
calculator is very strong at the beginning of this course. They have already had extensive experience with
graphing functions, determining an appropriate window, and finding max/min values and roots. In
addition, students are adept at working with tables, lists, matrices, and most regression options. They have
already had experience with most, if not all, features under STAT PLOT. Hence, a background introduction
to the graphing calculator is not necessary, but daily use and instruction on the TI-83/84 is nonetheless a
critical component of the course. For example, most students will not have had previous calculator
experience with hypothesis testing or confidence intervals and therefore direct instruction on the calculator
is needed for these and other topics throughout the course.
The class meets in the computer lab 10 to 15 days a school year and works directly with MINITAB on
assignments, investigative tasks, and both group and individual projects.
AP Exam Review and Post-Exam:
The course syllabus is designed to allow approximately two full weeks of review for the AP Exam.
Problems from many of the released previous AP exams are assigned. Some are assigned for homework,
while many others are done in class within the required timing guidelines. The free response questions are
graded using the published AP scoring rubrics. Solutions are then discussed and presented to the entire
class.
Following the AP Exam, students are assigned additional projects, generally in pairs or small groups. Class
presentations are required. (See additional notes at the end of this document detailing a project and two of
the Investigative Tasks.)
Primary Resources:
, AP STATISTICS DOCUMENT UBD SAMPLE Q & A
Primary Textbook (all students have this textbook)
Bock, Velleman, De Veaux. Stats Modeling the World. 2nd Edition. Pearson Education, Inc., 2007
ActivStats: (This is a multi-media program that supplements and extends the textbook above. It provides
extremely helpful worked-out examples, along with animated expositions of all major topics. Also included
are hundreds of additional exercises and data sets.)
Secondary Textbooks and Resource Materials
Yates, Moore, Starnes. The Practice of Statistics. 3rd Edition. W. H. Freeman and Company, 2008.
Moore, McCabe. Introduction to the Practice of Statistics. 3rd Edition. W. H. Freeman and Company, 1999.
