ATHK1001 Assignment 2
Due date: 11:59pm Monday, May 6th (Week 11). Late penalty of 5% per calendar day applies.
Online submission: All submissions are to be made online via the link on the ATHK1001 Canvas
website. All submissions must be a single PDF, DOC or DOCX file. Do not submit files that contain
images because they may not be readable. Unreadable files may be treated as non-submissions.
Submissions will be checked for plagiarism. Artificial Intelligence tools such as ChatGPT that generate
writing are not permitted.
Incorrect submissions: If you discover after the due date but before the closing date that the file you
submitted on was incorrect, then let us know. You may be given the option to resubmit a corrected
version with a 50% penalty or the relevant lateness penalty, whichever is greater.
Word limit: Maximum 750 words. There is no required minimum number of words. A penalty of 10%
will apply to papers that exceed this limit by more than 0% but less than 10%, a 20% penalty if you
exceed the limit by 10% to 20%, a 30% penalty if you exceed the limit by 20% to 30%, a 40% penalty
if you exceed the limit by 30% to 40%, and a 50% penalty if you exceed the limit by more than 40%.
Total = 80 possible marks. (15% of total marks for the unit)
For this assignment answer the following questions. Do not repeat the questions with your answers,
simply number your answers. Answers must be complete sentences.
1. “Knowing where Dr. Bruce Burns works is positively correlated with being
in ATHK.”
1A. For 3 marks, using complete sentences, state the three model types that can explain the
correlation. Use X, Y, and Z in your answer. Number the model types 1, 2, and 3.
1B. For 6 marks, for each of the causal models 1, 2, and 3 that you listed above, write a complete
sentence, describing the causal model using words from the quoted sentence rather than using X’s and
Y’s.
2. Today at Ralph’s, buying a sandwich gets you a free coffee
The above sentence may indicate something about necessary and sufficient conditions for getting a
free coffee. For 4 marks, rewrite this sentence, correctly using the words necessary and/or sufficient in
the sentence.
3. The null hypothesis could be true or it could be false. For each possibility,
there are two possible outcomes for a statistical test (see Week 9 pre-
recorded videos).
List four terms for the four outcomes (4 marks)
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4. Imagine that you submit Assignment 2 three days late.
For 3 marks, according to the Unit of Study outline, what is a necessary consequence?
5. The ATHK final exam.
5A. For 2 marks, according to the Unit of Study outline, is attempting the final exam necessary to pass
ATHK?
5B. For 2 marks, explain your answer in less than 20 words.
5C. For 2 marks, according to the Unit of Study outline, is attempting the final exam sufficient to pass
ATHK?
5D. For 2 marks, explain your answer in less than 20 words.
6. Eating that mushroom will cause death within 24 hours. I will not eat that
mushroom, so I will not die within 24 hours.
For 6 marks, rewrite the above in standard form, labelling the premises and conclusion.
7. The Wallace lecture theatre
7A. For 1 mark, is being inside Wallace Lecture Theatre a sufficient condition for being on the
University of Sydney campus?
7B. For 2 marks, explain why.
8. People who sign up for a class on gun safety die at a younger age, on
average, than people who have never taken a class on gun safety. A
television programme discussing that fact suggests that people should not
take a gun safety class.
8A. For 2 marks, state the causal model suggested by the television programme.
8B. For 4 marks, describe an alternative causal model that plausibly could explain the correlation.
Write a complete sentence and use words from the passage (no “X”s, “Y”s, or “Z”s).
8C. For 2 marks, explain why the model you provided in the previous answer is plausible.
9. In 2023, University of Sydney clubs without a photo of a woman on their
homepages got fewer sign-ups from females than clubs that do have a photo
of a woman on their homepages. The USU president concludes that photos
with women make female students more likely to apply.
For 8 points, describe an experiment to test the USU president’s conclusion, mentioning the measures
and variables.
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10. Logical truth tables are described in the Week 9 material. Consider the
following truth table:
For 4 points, write two if-then sentences that together match the truth table.
11. Auditing reveals that when a suitcase with a weapon is passed through the
automatic X-ray machine, the machine detects the weapon in 40% of cases.
11A. For 3 marks, write a sentence about the sensitivity or specificity of the machine.
11B. “When a suitcase has no weapons in it, the automatic X-ray machine says it has weapons in it in
3% of cases.”
For 3 marks, based on the sentence in quotes, write about the sensitivity or specificity of the machine.
12. Randy Researcher wants to know whether eating nuts every day causes
weight loss. First he does a study in which he assigns randomly-allocated
participants to eat pistachios every day or not. The study does not yield a
statistically significant reduction in weight in the nuts group compared to
the control group. Then he does a similar study of almonds, brazil nuts,
cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, walnuts,
peanuts, pili nuts, kola nuts, saba nuts, hickory nuts, butternuts, tiger nuts,
and chestnuts. All the studies do not yield a statistically significant result
except for the hickory nuts study, which does yield a statistically significant
weight loss.
Randy concludes that some nuts, specifically hickory nuts, cause weight loss.
For 4 marks, explain with your own English words why explain why Randy’s conclusion may be
wrong. Material from Week 9 may be helpful.
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13. “Anti-missile defense systems destroy killer drones” is the title of a news
article.
For 3 marks, does the article title make a correlational or a causal claim? Explain why you think this.
14. Soccer training is cancelled if it rains on Tuesday, and soccer training was
cancelled last week. It must have rained last Tuesday.
14A. For 6 marks, in 35 words or less rewrite as a syllogism, with premises and a conclusion.
14B. For 4 marks, is the syllogism suppositionally inescapable? Explain why.
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