Quiz Schedule
There are six quizzes, given in class, taking approximately the first 25 minutes of the session. Together they are worth 25% of your grade, and the lowest is dropped for students in both 4850 and 5850.
Policies — logistics, accommodations, conflicts, and academic integrity — are on the quiz policies page.
Dates and Coverage
| Quiz | Date | Covers Through | Topics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quiz 1 | Mon 2/08 | Fri 2/05 | Probability review, Monte Carlo |
| Quiz 2 | Mon 2/22 | Fri 2/19 | Regression, the hinge, null models, both bootstraps |
| Quiz 3 | Fri 3/05 | Fri 2/26 | The bootstrap in practice, Bayes, MCMC |
| Quiz 4 | Fri 3/19 | Fri 3/12 | GLMs, maximum entropy, extremes: GEV and POT |
| Quiz 5 | Fri 4/09 | Fri 3/26 | Thresholds, nonstationary extremes, time series |
| Quiz 6 | Mon 5/03 | Fri 4/23 | Model evaluation and the criteria contrast |
Every quiz covers material through the previous Friday at the latest, and nothing after it. This is a rule, not a tendency, and it is why the dates sit where they do. It also guarantees that there is always a homework assignment on the material, with its solution key in your hands, before the quiz that tests it.
What Is On A Quiz
The emphasis is on concepts. There is no programming, and nothing requiring memorized formulas. Expect 3–5 questions worth 1–3 points each, drawn from the same six forms the homework assignments rehearse:
| Form | What it asks |
|---|---|
| State the model with its assumptions | Write out the equations, including any and all assumptions |
| Define a property | What does it mean for an estimator to be unbiased? |
| Read a diagnostic | Here is an ACF, a trace plot, a residual plot — what does it tell you? |
| Interpret a result | Often as true/false statements about a reported interval |
| Small computation | How many Monte Carlo samples for a given standard error? |
| State an assumption | What does the non-parametric bootstrap assume? |
The homework assignments are the sample quizzes. That is what they are for, and it is why there is one before every quiz.
Every other quiz is on a Friday. The first two cannot be, because the Fridays they would need — 2/12, 2/19, and 2/26 — hold the three sessions this course is built around, and none of them can afford to lose 25 minutes. Quiz 1 also needs to be early enough that you find out what a quiz looks like while it is still cheap, which rules out waiting for the next free Friday in March.