EZ-101 Statistics (Barron's Ez-101 Study Keys),   ISBN:9780764129155

Customer Rating: 

This isn't a book to learn statistics from. This is for someone who needs to brush up for a new class or an exam. I used it when I had an engineering course that expected a much stronger background in statistics than I had, and I found it to be a very handy reference material. If you want to start from square one and learn statistics, there are other books for that.

Yes, the book sometimes skimps on the derivation and explanation, but it is supposed to be an easy review-type book, not a comprehensive textbook. I'm glad the authors kept the size down and got to the heart of making the reader functional in stastics.

What is key to the usefulness of this book is the worked examples. Some texts give you theory and expect you to apply it on your own. The author of this book always provides a worked example, so you know how to go out and apply this material on your own.

There are some errors in the answers to the problems, which I hope will be fixed in the next edition.

Customer Rating: 

A well organised book for full time statistic's students but not for part-timers or those with only a general interest in Statistics. This is an exam revision text.

Customer Rating: 

This book is pitched at university level study and covers the mathematics in an easy to understand manner. I have completed university level statistics however, the assigned textbook was dry and difficult to understand. I did do well in the subject, however this was by rote learning past exams rather than any deep understanding of the material. This book changes everything and I only wish I had it when I did my maths course!

The book is written in a very clear style. All theory is accompanied by fully worked examples. There are plenty of graphs and explanations to illustrate the point. At the end of each theme, there is a set of problems again with fully worked solutions. Mathematical terms are explained in clear English so that I finally know what "chi square" and "degree of freedom" actually mean.

The book is not perfect. As previously mentioned, there are a number of errors in the worked solutions. However, these are quickly spotted. A lot of the time, the book just asks you to accept certain equations, without showing how they are derived. It would have been nice to have an appendix with derivations of the various formulae, so that you could look them up if you were so inclined.

However, these small flaws do not detract from what is an excellent text. I'd recommend this text for anyone who needs an understanding of the fundamentals of statistics. I managed to cover a whole semester's work in about 1/10th of the time!

Customer Rating: 

It turns out that most of the answers in the book are correct. The first problem in chapter one is incorrect, in that the median of the set of numbers is actually zero, not one. However, the problems I had with chapter two would not have arisen had the difference between the standard deviation of the population and the standard deviation of a sample been better explained. The fact that I can even say such things is proof that I learned something. :-) I must upgrade my rating and also recommend this book. It is concise (perhaps too much at times), but it does cover a fantastic range of material.

Customer Rating: 

I bought this book because I liked the way it was organized and the material it covered. The explanations are good. However, when I started to work the exercises, I found that many of the answers in the back of the book are wrong. To prove it, I input the values into Excel and had it compute them. My answers matched those from Excel, so I must conclude that the answers in the back are wrong.

I suggest buying the Schaum's Outline book on Statistics by Spiegel.