Statistics The Easy Way (Barron's Easy Way) [Paperback]

Ph.D. Douglas Downing (Author), Jeff Clark Ph.D. (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0812093925 | ISBN-13: 978-0812093926 | Publication Date: February 1, 1997 | Edition: 3

These books are ideal students self-help supplements. They offer valuable overviews of course work and extra help with difficult subject areas. This volume explains probability, random variables, distributions, laws of large numbers and the central limit theorem, polls and sampling, linear regression, and much more. Hundreds of exercises with selected answers, plus programs in BASIC.

Product Details

• Paperback: 394 pages
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series; 3 edition (February 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812093925
• ISBN-13: 978-0812093926
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 7.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In-depth explanation in elementary mathematics, January 4, 2003

By 

Seungwoo Hwang (Albany, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Statistics The Easy Way (Barron's Easy Way) (Paperback)

This book teaches you, at an elementary level, how statistical formulas are derived and how they are used. This book will be especially useful for people with limited knowledge in calculus.

Without using much calculus, nearly every formulas are presented with very readable proofs (e.g., derivation of multinomial formula, derivation of Poisson distribution formula, derivation of moment generating functions, derivation of Chi-square distribution formula, proof of Markov's inequality, proof of Chebyshev's inequality, proof of central limit theorem, and many many others).

If you are unhappy with other statistics books that merely show you formulas and make you plug in numbers, or books written in mathematics beyond your education, then this book is for you. Read the introduction and you will get an idea. It is an amazing piece of pedagogic work.

There are, however, many typos in the book (I found 30 typos and reported to publisher). Further, there is no web site for errata correction. If it were not for errata, I would have given 5 stars.

If you find this book too elementary for you, I would recommend "An introduction to mathematical statistics and its applications, 3rd Edition, Larson & Marx", which was the textbook for an introductory statistics course that I took.

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essentials++, April 23, 2001

By 

CG-NJ (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Statistics The Easy Way (Barron's Easy Way) (Paperback)

I used this book to prepare for the probability and combinatorics sections of a Discrete Math exam, so my comments only involve the corresponding parts of the book.

The cover says, "All the essentials in one clear volume", and yes, it does seem to cover the essentials. Of note however, and why I'm writing this review, is that the book also offers some interesting C & C++ code snippets which relate to selected statistics problems. These may be of interest to some students trying to learn these languages along with statistics.

Also noteworthy is that Appendix 2 offers a table of statistical functions available in Microsoft Excel, which many of us may not have been aware of.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Why this book is confusing, April 6, 2010

By 

Asayo Tanaka "Eric Larson" (Yachiyo-shi, Chiba-ken Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Statistics The Easy Way (Barron's Easy Way) (Paperback)

This book is confusing because 1) it often (usually?) skips several steps in its mathematical explanations, 2) it sometimes does not explain the reasons for its conclusions, and 3) some of its explanations are based on previously introduced information that the reader has likely already forgotten, which would be okay if only the book reminded the reader of the previously introduced information. Space wasted on cute comments could have been better used to include missing steps and information. Some steps require knowledge of calculus. "The Easy Way" is a misleading title.