M.S. Comprehensive Examination Topics
Probability and Mathematical Statistics
2007
Probability
Sample spaces, Events, Kolmogorov's Axioms, Set Theory, Conditional Probability, Independence, Bayes' Formula.
Random Variables
Continuous and Discrete RV's, CDF, pdf, Expectation, Inequalities, Moment Generating Function, Raw and Central Moments.
Special Distributions
Bernoulli, Binomial, Geometric, Negative Binomial, Hypergeometric, Poisson, Multinomial, Uniform, Normal Exponential, Gamma, Chi Square, t, F.
Joint Distributions
Independent Distributions, Conditional Distributions, Marginal Distributions.
Properties of Random Variables
Expected Values, Covariances, Correlation, Conditional Expectation, Conditional Variance.
Functions of Random Variables
Transformations, CDF Technique, Joint Transformations, Sums of Random Variables, Order Statistics.
Limiting Distributions
Convergence in Distribution, Stochastic Convergence, Convergence in Probability, Central Limit Theorem, Law of Large Numbers (Strong and Weak).
Point Estimation
Method of Moments, Maximum Likelihood, Invariance, Unbiased Estimators, UMVUE's, Efficiency, MSE, Consistency, Bayes Estimators.
Sufficiency and Completeness
Jointly Sufficient Statistics, Minimal Sufficiency, Factorization Criterion, Completeness, Exponential Class, Cramer-Rao Lower Bound, Rao-Blackwell Theorem, Lehman-Scheffe Theorem.
Interval Estimation
Confidence Intervals, Pivotal Quantity Method, General Method, Two-sample CI's.
Tests of Hypotheses
Simple and Composite Hypotheses, Critical Regions, Size, Power Function, P-values, Normal Tests, Most Powerful Tests, Uniformly Most Powerful Tests, Neyman-Pearson Lemma, Likelihood Ratio Tests.
Reference:
Introduction to Probability and Mathematical Statistics, 2nd Edition,
Lee J. Bain & Max Engelhardt, Duxbury Press.
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