2

1. (5 pts) The following statements pertain to the first-day survey and the discussion of it in the following lectures. Which statements are true? (multiple True/False = MTF)

(A) In the survey, you were asked to evaluate the truth of statements on a single, ‘yes’ vs. ‘no’ scale.

(B) Three patterns were identified among the class responses to different questions: consensus true/false (most of the class agreeing that the statement was true or was false), consensus uncertainty (most of the class toward the middle), and bimodality.

(D) As a whole, the class was almost entirely disbelieving of statements not backed by scientific evidence.

(E) It was suggested that a person’s response of uncertainty on a statement need NOT reflect ignorance.

2. (4pts). The concept of a ‘decision rule’ was introduced. A decision rule is the way you arrive at a decision about the possible truth of something and what factors go into that decision. Which of the following apply to that discussion? MTF

A) One main ingredient in a decision rule is the person’s ‘direct experience’ with the topic.

B) One main ingredient in a decision rule is ‘evidence from others’ (other sources)

C) One main ingredient in a decision rule is the statement’s compatibility with a person’s world view

D) The emotional appeal a story generates can be a strong factor in whether a person accepts it.

Scientific Method

3). (4 pts) The scientific method figure (not shown) connects the steps of the scientific method with arrows. Which of the following options are true? Where step B is said to follow step A, it must be that step B immediately follows A (and likewise for statements about A preceding B). (MTF)

(A) Data feed into Revision.

(B) Revision feeds into Goals.

(D) The goal leads into Evaluation.

4. (5 pts) KrumCo is a non-profit organization that tries to promote awareness of themselves. Their members go about town giving talks and posting fliers about their organization. Throughout the year, members conduct small surveys of handfuls of the town residents to find out how many people have heard of their organization, and at every annual meeting they consider these surveys in deciding whether KrumCo is well enough known to satisfy their objective. Every year they decide that they are doing a good job and so keep doing what they have always done.

Which elements of the scientific method are present for use of this program to find the numbers? MTF

(A) Goal

(B) Model

(D) Evaluation

(E) Revision

(F) None

5. (5 pts) Astrologists claim to be able to predict your future and give insights to your being, and they have well-defined rules to use in reaching those forecasts, based on your birthday and birth hour. However, there are no attempts to test the accuracy of those predictions – no formal observations, no comparisons of observations to predictions, and no consequent changes in the rules used. (The goal is underlined.)

Data is/are absent in this description. Why? MTF

(A) Evaluation is absent, and there can be no data without evaluation.

(B) Models are absent. Without models, you cannot gather data to test the models.

(C) The problem states that there are no attempts to test the accuracy of the predictions; this statement directly indicates that data is/are absent.

(D) The problem states that there are no formal observations, which means that data are not present.

6 - 10 (7.5 pts total, 1.5 pts each; one answer only per question). In the class book, cooking from a recipe was said to resemble the scientific method. Which steps from that example illustrate each of the five elements of the scientific method?.

Use these 5 answers as your list (A) the recipe

of choices in 6-10 below: (B) to prepare a food dish

(D) tasting during preparation or when served

(E) decisions on how it tastes

6. Goal: (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (one answer only)

7. Model: (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (one answer only)

8. Data: (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (one answer only)

9. Evaluation: (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (one answer only)

10. Revision: (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (one answer only)

11. (6 pts) Which of the following statements apply to our teachings of the scientific method (SM) or were given in class/book as illustrations of a failure to adopt scientific evidence? (MTF)

A) In the U.S. criminal justice system, where the goal is to identify perpetrators of crimes, the constitutional rule that a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime (short of a hung jury) is a violation of the revision part of the SM.

B) An athletic team that intends to win but never changes its game plan despite losing is lacking in Data.

C) A team with no game plan would be lacking in Models.

D) The main difference between ‘trial and error’ and our version of the SM is that trial and error does not involve data

E) The book suggested that the strategy used when gambling with a single slot machine did not allow improvement via the scientific method. The reason for this conclusion is that there is no revision possible – no way to change how the slot machine is played.

F) The SM is a method that enables progress toward a goal. In the lamp demo, we kept rejecting our models of how the lamp worked, but we never found one that worked. Thus, there was no revision and no progress.

Models

12. (6pts) For which options is the “How false” of the model likely relevant to the goal? MTF

Option	Model	Goal	How false
(A)	street map of Austin as a model of Austin streets	find a short-distance route between UT and a street intersection in N. Austin	the map does not indicate where stop lights are
(B)	street map of Austin as a model of Austin streets	find streets with low traffic for safe biking	the map does not indicate traffic levels
(C)	clinical trails of a new drug as a model of drug performance	determine drug safety for the potential clients who will buy this drug, which includes all adult Americans	the trials only involve white males
(D)	pictures on the outside of a prepared food package, as a model of the contents	to sell the prepared food	the pictures offer a more appealing view of the contents than would the actual contents

13. (6 pts) General points about models. Which of the following are true? MTF

ACU (accuracy, convenience, uniformity) refers to the order of preference we want in the characteristics of a model – the most useful models are more accurate than convenient and more convenient than uniform. Thus, you were never told CUA or UCA.
ACU are characteristics of a model that make it useful. No one characteristic is necessarily valued above the others.
A model can be both accurate and convenient, because there is nothing that keeps a model from satisfying several of the 3 ACU criteria.
One model can be useful for two or more different goals.
Two models for the same goal may have different strengths and limitations. Together, they may complement each other, so the strengths of one overcome the limitations of another. This principle is evident among the different models used in condom testing (e.g., airburst test and volunteer studies).

14 (3pts). Which of the following models from class are examples of physical models? MTF

(A) The model of infectious disease epidemic growth

(B) The airburst test of condoms

15. (5 pts) Which of the following are potentially useful models of a computer with the goal of repairing it if it breaks? MTF

(A) The instruction manual

(B) Another functional computer of the same type

(D) Pictures of the inside and outside of the computer

(E) Its serial number and model number

16 (4pts). MTF An opinion survey of 1000 UT students obtained at a football game is a false model of the responses that would be obtained by giving the survey to all UT students because:

(A) The opinions of students attending a football game may differ from those who don’t attend games

(B) UT students are not representative of all people living in Austin

(D) It is not possible to conduct a “scientific” survey at a football game

Condom testing

17. (5pts) Which of the following are models of sex between people toward at least one of these two goals: (i) determining whether a condom will remain intact during sex, or (ii) whether a condom will block disease transmission? (MTF)

A) The airburst test

B) The Mariposa CSI (coital simulating instrument)

C) Volunteer couples testing condoms

D) The water leak test

18. (4pts). What are limitations of the airburst test as a model for the goal of predicting whether a condom will stay intact during sex? (note the goal) MTF

A) The airburst test does not generate the friction and wear that condoms typically experience during sex

B) The airburst test does not indicate whether condoms that survive the airburst would allow the passage of a microbe that causes an STD.

C) The airburst test is not conducted at body temperature and moisture that match sex.

D) The airburst test does not provide a whole-condom measure of integrity.

19. (5pts) Class and the book noted some studies in which volunteers were used to test condom effectiveness in blocking HIV transmission. Which of the following apply? MTF

A) Some HIV- participants using condoms converted to HIV+, but these conversions could not be unambiguously attributed to condom failure. This inability to identify the role of condom failure in transmission is a limitation of the models used in these studies.

B) A lack of uniformity applied to the volunteers in these studies, which prevented any meaningful conclusions.

C) The study used single, HIV- men and observed the rate of conversion to HIV+. A limitation of this study is therefore that it may not apply to couples, because single men may have different exposures than those in a relationship.

D) The conversion rate for HIV- individuals in the ‘no or low condom use’ category was about 10%.

DWI testing

20. (5pts) (MTF) Which of the following options are true? MTF

A) The fact that officers provide the same instructions each time the SFST is administered renders it a convenient model (among the three ACU properties).

B) The horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) test is administered to test mental faculties, whereas the other two tests (walk and turn, one leg stand) are administered to assess just physical faculties (coordination).

C) For the goal of assessing whether a driver is actually impaired (as opposed to legally impaired), the SFST is a more accurate model of performance than is the BAC.

D) A limitation of the BAC measured in blood is that the breath alcohol concentration may differ from blood alcohol concentration

E) A sober person wearing ‘fatal vision’ goggles is a useful model of an impaired person for the goal of illustrating SFST performance.

21. (4pts) Which limitations apply to ‘back calculations’ of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to determine whether a driver exceeded 0.08% when stopped by the police (the goal here is to determine whether someone exceeded the 0.08% limit)? MTF

A) There are no human data on how fast alcohol is cleared from the body

B) The calculation does not account for many factors that may affect alcohol clearance (such as food in stomach, individual differences in metabolism, type of alcohol consumed).

C) Different people may be differently impaired at the same level of BAC.

D) The test does not measure impairment per se.

Infectious Disease

22. (5pts) The basic reproductive number (R₀) is a model of the spread of an infectious agent. It equals bS/(r+d), where S is the number of susceptible people, b is the transmission rate parameter, r is the recovery rate, and d the death rate. Which of the following are true? (MTF)

A) A drug that sped up recovery would increase r and increase R₀.

B) Vaccinating people would have no impact on this formula, because the formula does not include a term for vaccinated people.

C) One of the main uses of this model is to inform us what fraction of the population must be vaccinated to eradicate a disease

D) R₀ has been measured over a wide range of environments and typically shows only a small amount of variation (different estimates vary by less than 10%)

E) If R₀ exceeds 1.0, it means that the disease can spread in the human population.

F) R₀ does not indicate whether symptoms appear before, during, or after transmission starts.

23. (4pts) The epidemiological model presented in class and in the book (involving the number of infecteds, susceptibles, transmission rate, etc) is both a useful and false model. Which of the following options is/are correct? (MTF)

A) The model informs us about which interventions will reduce infection rates

B) The model cannot be applied to a situation in which humans wear masks to reduce the infection rate of a respiratory disease.

C) The model can be applied to many different diseases (though not all).

D) The model does not describe whether the number of infected individuals will change over time.

24. (4 pts) Which of the following points were made about influenza (flu)? You may defend your answer with the book, class lecture notes, or any other valid information you have. (MTF)

A) In typical years, influenza kills tens of thousands of Americans.

B) Vaccines need to be updated because flu virus evolves over time to escape our immunity.

C) Virtually no humans have immunity against the H5 type found in bird flu.

D) For an individual infected with flu during the 1918 epidemic, the chance of dying from flu was about 1 in 4.

E) The only previous known case in which a new influenza type invaded the human population was in 1918.

25. (4 pts) Each of the following options lists or refers to a theme in the course notes and then offers an explanation of what it means. Which of these statements about Meaning are true? (MTF)

(A) Theme: One-to-many, many-to-one. Meaning: when pursuing one goal, we may at first use many different models (e.g., the airburst test and water-leak test of condoms), but eventually, we will converge on using just a single model for achieving that goal.

(B) Theme: The importance of model accuracy. Meaning: ultimately, the most useful model (the one we most want to use) is the one that most closely matches what we are trying to represent. For example, human subjects are the most useful model for studying whether a food additive causes of cancer in humans, as opposed to mice or bacteria, because mice and bacteria are not humans.

(C) Theme: pieces and parts as models. Meaning: a model of something is more likely to be useful the closer it comes to representing the "whole" of it, rather than just a part of it.

26 (4pts) Key code. Fill in AB on your scantron to indicate which version of the test you have; do not fill in any other bubbles. Correctly bubble in your Personal code and name, and sign this form.