Deck 9: Building Your Own Database

Question 1

New York University students proved that the university has more crime than school officials willing to admit by using data they got from the office of the New York State Attorney General.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

If you build a database to compare information, you should put only one type of information in each column.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The mode represents how frequent a piece of data appears in your dataset.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Per capita is a Latin term that means any action taken by a central government.

Question 5

Social security numbers are an example of a unique identifier.

Question 6

The San Diego Union-Tribune's story on college bowl games analyzed which of the following data"

A) How the bowl system designated winners and losers
B) Illegal payouts from the college bowl to participating schools
C) Improper payments from participating colleges to the bowl officials
D) Salaries of bowl officials

Question 7

The New York Times was criticized for a story about marriage statistics because of what type of problem with its analysis?

A) The data included women who lived outside the United States.
B) The data included women in same-sex marriages.
C) The data included women as young as 15.
D) The data included transgender women.

Question 8

Coding data in a database allows you to do which of the following?

A) Break the data into subsets without losing the thread of the groupings
B) Disguise the data in case police subpoena it
C) Keep the data relevant to your investigation
D) Make your data understandable for your readers

Question 9

You should code your data when you __________.

A) Have a database that will likely stay a manageable size
B) Need to translate difficult terminology
C) Have a database that will grow in size
D) Seek to identify many different religious groups.

Question 10

An aggregate is which of the following?

A) An irritating discrepancy
B) The sum total
C) Some of the data
D) A piece of the whole

Question 11

How can numbers make a story stand out?

Question 12

How can data help convince skeptical readers?

Question 13

How can data mislead?

Question 14

How can a blank form help you find data?

Question 15

If data is stored in a format that you can't work with, what should you do?

Question 16

Why is it helpful to interview the people who normally use particular data?

Question 17

Why is it useful to interview the people who maintain the data?

Question 18

Why is it sometimes important to build your own database from data you collect?

Question 19

What is the difference between the median and an average?

Question 20

What can the mode show?