The Humongous Book of Statistics Problems Paperback – December 1, 2009

I've solved every problem in The Humongous Book of Statistics Problems, and it is a very good statistics book. As a matter of fact, I am pleasantly surprised at the level of pedagogy infused throughout the book as the authors have showed the willingness to include topics not normally covered in other statistics books.

Some of these examples are nonparametric tests including sign tests (small and large samples), paired-sample sign tests (small and large samples), Wilcoxon Rank Sum Tests (small and large samples and also dependent samples), Kruskal-Wallis Test, and Spearman Rank Correlation Test; forecasting (simple MA, weighted MA, exponential smoothing also with trend adjustment, and seasonality indices), and statistical process control including process capability ratio and index. The way the authors explained the concepts is very good and beats many statistical textbooks.

On the other hand, I have to note the negatives about The Humongous Book of Statistics Problems. For example, problems 4.21 through 4.24, the authors don't bother with Venn Diagrams to illustrate how the problems can be solved. I've always thought it to be an indispensable tool when encountering these certain problems.

Chapter 6 doesn't bother with the concept of summation symbol to add up the probabilities. It would have saved a lot of time and is really important for Poisson probabilities. Although the authors do a nice job of explaining Chapters 10 and 11, the problems are an overkill. It's just too many problems for one concept. Reducing it would be a better idea to free up some space for additional statistical concepts.

Getting rid of Chapter 18, which is a test review, would be a good idea too. As disappointing as it may seem, The Humongous Book of Statistics Problems doesn't cover multiple regression or advanced ANOVA designs beyond one-way block randomized designs. It doesn't cover moments and kurtosis either. There isn't a section about curve fitting in terms of nonlinear regression. I would have loved to see them explained in the book.

All in all, The Humongous Book of Statistics Problems is an impressive book that will get anyone acquainted with statistics, but I feel it needs a new updated edition to address the negatives.

Errata
Pg. 172, 7.8: The final solution is 0.0401, not 0.041.

Pg. 206, 8.20: It should be 0.4969 - 0.3621 = 0.1348.

Pg. 217, 8.39: Messy because it should be 37/90, not 27/90. The rest of the way is mostly wrong. So, it would be z sub 0.03 = 3.07. The final answer will be 0.0607 since 0.4989 - 0.4382.

Pg. 338, 12.28 (also, Pg. 386, 13.56): This error appears from time to time in the book. Every time it asks you to test at the significance level, the authors uses the chi symbol when it should be the alpha symbol.

Pg. 361, 13.13: Look at the table, and there is a 4 right below the MS for Between Samples. Erase that.

Pg. 382, 13.49: At the 0.01 level, not the 0.10 level.

Pg. 383, 13.50: At the 0.01 level, not the 0.10 level.

Pg. 414, 15.2: "a nonparametric test is wider than the corresponding..."

Pg. 416, 15.6: The last part of the final sentence should read as "conclude that the median temperature is 45 degrees F."

Pg. 427, 15.23: The table includes Math when it should be Physics.

Pg. 462, 16.21: "...should most accurately predict Day 5?"

Pg. 527, 18.44: t-scores, not z-scores.

To begin I used this book and the Complete Idiot's guide to Statistics book to prime
myself for the dsst exam. I'm close to 60 years old.

I found the book excellent in it's coverage of the various examples and problems
that a student would encounter in exercises or tests. The exercises begin simple
enough, but they become more complex as expected. The explanation and directions are
given in side notes these add to understanding the problems solution. The continuing
sections of each chapter are further seperated for clarity. There are nearly 900
problems included in this book.

An example in beginning Hypothesis Testing for a Single Population, the reader is
introduced to a Mean= or > than 30 and Sigma unknown. The next section begins to
a Mean < 30 and Sigma known. This sequence continues for each chapter section so to keep a student from getting too confused. The book covers or touches most material
included in a first years Statistics course.Including Statistical Process Control.

The bad points...there are a few typos and miscalculations, but they are not
insurmountable. If I can find them and correct so can a younger student.
By the way I scored a 460 on the dsst Statistics exam.

Statistics and Calculus are probably the two most useful mathematical concepts known to man. They are used extensively not only in math, engineering, and science, but also in business, finance, and economics as well.

Statistics allows one to derive relationships between data sets and derive future probabilities and, therefore, predictive abilities. If you want to predict the future within reason, then all you need are strong statistics (sometimes calculus) knowledge and plethora of accurate and relevant data.

This book unleashes the power of statistics unto the reader. The explanations are the clearest I have read and the most user friendly. Unfortunately, most of the statistics books are very dry and difficult to read. This book tries to counter that trend. Although statistics is still a dry topic, the format of this book, with its many captions, tries to make it interesting. It views statistics from the reader's perspective and tries to fill in the knowledge gap a reader might have about statistics as each chapter progresses. It is very well written and I wish this was my statistics text back during my school days.

There are plenty of practice problems but many of the practice problems are essentially the same problems with different wording. Much of the steps in solving the problems in each chapter involves using the same processes and formulas. The questions are also on the easy side. If you are looking for challenging statistics problems, then this book may not fill your need.

This book does not involve using calculus and only arithmetic and algebra knowledge are required. But by doing so, it doesn't dig into advanced statistics which is probably beyond the scope of this book anyhow.

Instructions on using statistics software such as SAS, MiniTab, or Excel are NOT included. This is pure statistics textbook that teaches how to solve problems using a good old fashioned calculator and statistics tables.