Minitab Notes for Activity 3

Creating the Worksheet

You will be entering your own information for this activity.

  1. Label five empty columns as "game", "first roll", "initial result", "final result", "rolls". You're free to call them something else, but you'll need to adjust the instructions accordingly.
  2. Enter the data into the worksheet.
  3. Go File / Save Project As
  4. Move through the filesystem to R:
  5. Change to your section number
  6. Change to the act03 folder
  7. Type a name that is unique to your group
  8. Click OK

From now on, when you need to work with the project, open the one for your group.

Creating Marginal Distributions (Questions 3, 4, and 5)

Although a number, the first roll is actually a categorical variable as it doesn't make any sense to compare a roll of 4 with a roll of 9. The results are also categorical variables.

  1. Choose Stat / Tables / Tally Individual Variables
  2. Select the "first roll", "initial result", and "final result" variables.
  3. Check the box beside Percents so that both Counts and Percents are displayed.
  4. Click OK

Summarizing the Data (Question 6)

Descriptive Statistics

  1. Choose Stat / Basic Statistics / Display Descriptive Statistics
  2. Double click on the variable "rolls"
  3. Click on Statistics and check the boxes you need: sum, mean, median, variance, and standard deviation
  4. Click OK

Graphical Summary

  1. Choose Stat / Basic Statistics / Graphical Summary
  2. Select "rolls" for the variable to display
  3. Click OK

Use the histogram from the graphical summary screen to talk about the shape of the distribution.