Chances Are: The Only Statistic Book You'll Ever Need [Paperback]

Steve Slavin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 18, 1998

Chances Are is the first book to make statistics accessible to everyone, regardless of how much math you remember from school.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

When do you draw a bar graph and when a line graph? Although Slavin finally answers that question a few chapters after he poses it, his initial advice is that "sometimes one or the other looks more dramatic." Just about any basic statistics textbook would provide as good or better a statistics course, but this book by a former statistics professor and author of several mathematics guides nonetheless fills a niche. For one thing, it is brief (most of the pages are filled with step-by-step problem solutions); it is also basic, providing just enough statistical know-how to write or understand a business report. The author's politically conservative preferences come through in the text; the intended audience seems to be business people who want to brush up on statistics for professional development. For that purpose, this is an adequate self-study course for popular business math collections. In Slavin's words, "This book will not make you into an instant statistician, but you certainly will qualify as a number cruncher."?Amy Brunvand, Univ. of Utah Lib., Salt Lake City
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Madison Books (June 18, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568331088
• ISBN-13: 978-1568331089
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,219,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steve Slavin, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Economics at Union County College, Cranford, New Jersey. He has written over 300 newspaper and magazine articles, and is the author of four other books, including All the Math You'll Ever Need: A Self-Teaching Guide and Economics: A Self-Teaching Guide, both published by Wiley.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So, what are the chances?, September 29, 2002

By 

Anthony Rodriguez "notyourtypicalreader" (Farmingville, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chances Are: The Only Statistic Book You'll Ever Need (Paperback)

So what are the chances that this really is the only Statistics book you'll ever need? Depends on who you are.

If you are an adult who's been out of school for a while and never took a course in statistics and won't be needing to take one in the foreseeable future this really is the only book you'll probably ever need. It starts off explaing basic arithmetic and moves to decimals,percents and eases into the basics of statistics.

If you're a college student who hasn't taken any statistics classes before but will be soon this is a good primer. It will give you the necessary basics to remove any stumbling blocks during those first weeks of classes but you will move beyond the scope of this book quickly.

If you've already taken some statistics courses this is not the book for you. This book is not meant for someone with any background already, it will be far too basic.

The title is accurate in that it is meant for the average person not the math professional. Should the latter be looking for a comprehensive tome on statistical analysis this isn't it.

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for anyone needing to do statistical analysis, November 27, 2001

By 

Rick Blumrick "Bahiagold007" (Gilbert, Az United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chances Are: The Only Statistic Book You'll Ever Need (Paperback)

Nicely presented for the basic intro into statistics; mean, mode, probability, rates, basic graphs and charts, what a standard deviation is, what is correlation and regression ,etc. However, nothing on what statistical tests to perform when you have data to analyse, such as a student-t test, Chi Square, Mann-Whitney Test, or power analysis.

I bought this book thinking it would nicely outline statistical tests one would use and explain when to use the proper test. It doesn't mention any statistical analysis.

A very good book to review what would probably be in chapter 1 of any stats book plus correlation and regression. These are important concepts which need to be understood before one could think with statistics but certainly not "The Only Statistics Book You'd Ever Need."

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just what I needed...., January 24, 2001

By 

"shirleysheas" (Shirley, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chances Are: The Only Statistic Book You'll Ever Need (Paperback)

I am an adult college student in an independent degree program. One of my required courses was Statistics. Not having done math in many years, I found it extremely difficult to learn from the standard textbooks available on the subject. This book made learning (and understanding) statistics a snap. The only drawback I found were several typographical errors within the mathematical problems, causing my own calculations to differ from the ones in the book, something that at times was frustrating for a person trying to learn and working out every problem step by step. All in all though, I would highly recommend this book for a person with little or no mathematical experience to learn the art of statistics.