East and West
(page 88)

Beverly Bodgen's class and I have had a nice correspondence about this one. First I got this answer:

Answer: Western states

How we got our confident answer:

We placed each state in the east or west in Microsoft excel. (The attached file.) After that we added the population according to whether they were in the east or the west. We did that according to the Mississippi River. When we did the average, we found that the western states tended to have a larger population. The reason this occurred was because although there was a larger total of eastern states, there were more states to compute for the average.

Yes, we are from New Jersey.

Thank You!

Brent, Matt, Jack, Lee

(download their Excel file: AveragePopBLMJ.xls )

I looked at their file and asked them to look at it carefully. They replied:

Answer: Eastern states

How we got our confident answer:

We placed each state in the east or west in Microsoft excel.(The attached file.) After that we added the population according to whether they were in the east or the west. We did that according to the Mississippi River. When we did the average, we found that the eastern states tended to have a larger population. The reason this occurred was because although there was a larger total of eastern states, there were more states to compute for the average.

This is our revised answer due to the fact that we messed up our formulas. Thank you for taking the time to review our answers and e-mail us back

(download their second Excel file: AveragePopBLMJRevised.xls )

The lesson, of course, is that smart people occasionally make mistakes, and are clever enough to correct them. Now, I'm not saying which spreadsheet -- if any -- is right, mind you, but you can look at the two yourselves and see where (or whether) Brent, Matt, Jack, and Lee made their mistake.

In addition, the problem called for TWO different ways of asking the question. They have provided one. Anyone out there care to contribute a second?

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