The Professor's Response

I don't know if I don't understand it or its just that I've been all day doing problems, but I don't know how to do D. Can you help me please?? :)

I plugged an entire class of 200 into SPSS in order to calculate the least squares line for the entire data set. The results were as follows: y^ = 0.512 x + 70.196 .


a) What does x = 0 represent here?
b) What is the expected grade for students who do not earn any clicker points?
c) What is the average grade for a student who has 20 clicker points?
d) I pulled the grade and clicker points for a randomly chosen student from a different class of statistics from the spring term 2010. That student had 35 clicker points and a 94% in the class. Plug 35 points into our model, and determine the prediction error for this case.

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Professor McGukian

Hi Eric,
We have to compare, by subtraction, what the actual grade for the student who had 35 points was and what the model predicts for students with x = 35 points.

First plug 35 into the model: 0.512*35 +70.196 = 88.116   This means the model says students on average will have an 88.116% when they earn 35 points.  In reality, the student we pulled from the grade book had a 94%, so the prediction error is y - y-hat = 94 -88.116 = 5.884

Professor McGuckian

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