SOLUTION: Susan and David are both students at a large university. They have both just completed Psych 101 in different classes. Susan earned 89/100 on the final exam, while David earned 82/

Question 1117178: Susan and David are both students at a large university. They have both just completed Psych 101 in different classes. Susan earned 89/100 on the final exam, while David earned 82/100. Susan asserts that she performed better on the test. However David feels that Susan's teacher was a lot more qualified and thorough and that most students in that class performed well on the final exam. He suspects that in relation to the other students Susan's performance was not as good, whereas in relation to the students in his class David believes his performance was good.
How could you explain to Susan and David in layman's terms what information they need to find out to be able to calculate their z scores and what their z scores will be able to tell them about their performance on the test?
Answer by Boreal(15235) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
They need to know the average and the standard deviation for each class.
Once that is done, if they take their score, subtract the average, and divide by the standard deviation, both their scores will be standardized, and that score is a z-score.
One needs to know how far from the mean each score is, but in addition, the variability in the class is also important and must be used as well.
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