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Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: January 28th, 2018, 6:13 am
by Skink
megan_scioly wrote:Are the diseases being tested limited to the ones on the FDA chart? Thanks.
It shouldn't matter because you should not be asked about individual diseases in much detail; this isn't Microbe. Furthermore, the nature of these pathogens is that there are minute differences between them (e.g. incubation period is 12 versus 48hr). My recommendation is to make a shrunken-down table in a corner of the cheat sheet with this and any other potentially relevant topical information.
Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: January 28th, 2018, 9:38 am
by venules
In addition to the statistical measures listed on the national website and the most common biases (selection, information, etc.), are there any other statistics that are included on exams? I know there was a practice test that included Berksonian bias, and others that included statistical errors.
Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: January 29th, 2018, 11:59 am
by maxxxxx
venules wrote:In addition to the statistical measures listed on the national website and the most common biases (selection, information, etc.), are there any other statistics that are included on exams? I know there was a practice test that included Berksonian bias, and others that included statistical errors.
You should add just about any type of bias to your notes because some tests(I think GGSO last year was one) like to ask about stuff like. I've never seen any statistics that weren't on the national website, but you should have a good understanding of how and why they work because you may be faced with questions like that(Cornell 2016 asked about degrees of freedom).
Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: January 29th, 2018, 12:06 pm
by Nerd_Bunny
Since we're kinda on the topic of really hard stuff in DD does anyone know what degrees of freedom are and how to calculate them? I've got a statistics book here but it's been no help since I haven't taken calculus yet.

Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: January 29th, 2018, 3:01 pm
by Froggie
I had a question about incidence and prevalence on a test, and the choices were:
Incidence rate
Incidence
Incidence proportion
Prevalence rate
Prevalence
Prevalence proportion
I tried looking them up but I couldn't find a good answer that said how they were different and in what cases you would want to use one over the other.
Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: January 29th, 2018, 5:11 pm
by poonicle
venules wrote:In addition to the statistical measures listed on the national website and the most common biases (selection, information, etc.), are there any other statistics that are included on exams? I know there was a practice test that included Berksonian bias, and others that included statistical errors.
The national website should be fine. I think there's just a whole lot more "application" questions, i.e. "when would you use *insert statistical method*?" One thing that wasn't on that list was ANOVA though. Honestly, these stats rarely come up (at least on the national level tests I've taken...). I've seen chi square a couple of times like the other people on the thread but nothing else really...
Biases though are fairly important. If you go on to CDC there's a powerpoint of a bunch of different really specific biases, which may or may not come in handy (depends on where you're planning to compete tbh). Usually, the broader ones suffice but it's still nice to know things like Simpson's Paradox because that stuff comes up in tests sometimes.
Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: January 29th, 2018, 7:06 pm
by venules
Froggie wrote:I had a question about incidence and prevalence on a test, and the choices were:
Incidence rate
Incidence
Incidence proportion
Prevalence rate
Prevalence
Prevalence proportion
I tried looking them up but I couldn't find a good answer that said how they were different and in what cases you would want to use one over the other.
http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modu ... ency4.html
The above link should explain incidence rates and incidence proportions. Prevalence and prevalence rate are synonymous to my knowledge. I couldn't find anything on prevalence proportion, though; it might be a mistake?
poonicle wrote:The national website should be fine. I think there's just a whole lot more "application" questions, i.e. "when would you use *insert statistical method*?" One thing that wasn't on that list was ANOVA though. Honestly, these stats rarely come up (at least on the national level tests I've taken...). I've seen chi square a couple of times like the other people on the thread but nothing else really...
Biases though are fairly important. If you go on to CDC there's a powerpoint of a bunch of different really specific biases, which may or may not come in handy (depends on where you're planning to compete tbh). Usually, the broader ones suffice but it's still nice to know things like Simpson's Paradox because that stuff comes up in tests sometimes.
Thanks! (also @maxxxx)
Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: February 2nd, 2018, 12:37 pm
by gryphaea1635
Hi everyone,
Can someone help me with question #18 on the UT Austin Invitational B test? My answer was 2.2 and the answer key says 1.83.
The link to the test is here:
https://utexas.app.box.com/s/5ckx9zggsh ... 36465065/1
Thanks so much!
Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: February 2nd, 2018, 12:44 pm
by Tailsfan101
Huh, I got 2.2 also. Not quite sure if the answer is correct. Maybe someone else can help us out, hmm?
Re: Disease Detectives B/C
Posted: February 2nd, 2018, 1:03 pm
by The48thYoshi
Tailsfan101 wrote:
Huh, I got 2.2 also. Not quite sure if the answer is correct. Maybe someone else can help us out, hmm?
Link doesn’t work
