Course: Introduction to Statistics (18-week generic edition)
Module: Week 18 of 18 · planned around two ~75-minute sessions (Session 1 = cumulative review; Session 2 = the final)
Objectives covered: Objectives 1–9 — everything, in review; nothing new is introduced.

This file holds two pieces: (A) the Module 18 Overview page ("Start Here") and (B) the Welcome Announcement that drips out when the module opens. All timing is relative — "start of Week 18," "mid-week," "end of Week 18" — and maps onto real dates when the adopting instructor sets the term calendar.

(A) Module 18 Overview — Start Here

Welcome to Week 18: Final Exam Week

This is your home base for the last week of the course. Read it first, then work the checklist below from top to bottom — the order matters this week more than usual.

Here's the honest shape of the week: there is nothing new to learn. Every question on the final comes from a week you've already completed — fresh scenarios, clean numbers, same skills. Your job is to consolidate, rehearse, and then show up. And keep the stakes in perspective: the final is a low-stakes checkpoint worth 5%. The grade has lived in your weekly work all term, and that part is already written. This week is the victory lap with a scoreboard.

The week's big question

"Can you look at a brand-new statistical situation and know what to do — without anyone telling you which chapter it came from?"

That's the one skill a cumulative exam measures that no weekly quiz can: choosing the tool. Mean, proportion, counts in categories, or a line — one sample, two samples, or the same individuals twice. Everything else is execution you've already practiced.

By the end of this week, you can…

• [ ] Walk the four-unit map of the course from memory: describe → chance & models → estimate → test & choose.
• [ ] Route any scenario to its procedure using the decision map (the final's favorite move).
• [ ] Execute the machinery cleanly: z- and t-calculations on stated table values, intervals, tests, chi-square, and slope inference — with the classic traps (s vs. SE, "fail to reject ≠ accept," at-least vs. exactly) dodged on sight.
• [ ] Finish the course knowing exactly what you can now do that you couldn't in Week 1.

What to do this week, in order

The table below lists the week's items in working order, with what each is worth and when it's due.

Why the order matters: the study guide reloads everything; the practice exam then tells you the truth about what stuck; the tutorial repairs exactly what the practice exam exposed. Students who reverse the order spend their tutorial time discovering what the practice exam would have told them in thirty minutes.

A word about AI this week: your chatbot is your coach right up to the exam door — the practice final and the prep tutorial are built for it. The final itself, like every quiz this term, is closed to AI. That's the deal all term: the tool drafts and coaches; you are the one who gets measured.

Late policy reminder: 10% off per day late applies to the tutorial submission. The final has a fixed window — if life is happening this week, contact your instructor before the exam window, not after. Early is always easier.

How to succeed this week

• Two hours across three days beats one long night. Guide → practice → tutorial is deliberately sized for that rhythm, with the exam mid-week and breathing room after.
• Practice the retrieval, not the re-reading. Do the study guide's mini-examples with the solutions covered. Reading solutions feels like learning; producing them is learning.
• Drill the decision map out loud. For any scenario: what's the answer's shape — mean, proportion, counts, or a line? One sample, two, or paired? Say the tool before touching a formula.
• Know your top three traps. The all-term champions: s vs. SE, "95% of individuals," and fail-to-reject read as proven. If you dodge just those, you're ahead.
• Don't memorize tables. Any question needing a z, t, or chi-square value prints it. Practice using stated values quickly.
• Then close the laptop and sleep. A rested brain outperforms a crammed one on recognition tasks — and 60 multiple-choice questions are recognition tasks.

Eighteen weeks ago, you couldn't reliably tell a sample from a population. This week you'll choose correctly among nine inference tools without being told which one. That happened one steady week at a time — which is exactly how everything worth having gets built. Finish strong.

(B) Welcome Announcement — Module 18

Release setting: drips at the start of Week 18 (offset = 0 days from module start) — not before. If your platform won't preserve the scheduled release on import, post it as a draft labeled "Release: start of Week 18."

Subject: Welcome to Week 18 — the victory lap

Hi everyone,

Last week you fit a real regression and put its slope on trial — the course's last new tool. Which means this week there is nothing new to learn. Week 18 is Final Exam Week, and it's built to be the calmest week of the term.

The plain facts: the final is 60 questions, 2 points each, cumulative (about 24 questions from Weeks 1–8 and 36 from Weeks 10–17), one attempt, closed to AI, and worth 5% — a low-stakes checkpoint, exactly like the midterm was. It sits mid-week, so you have the early days to prepare and the last days to breathe. Any question that needs a z, t, or chi-square value prints the value right in the question — there is nothing to memorize.

Your path, in order (this order genuinely matters):
1. The Study Guide — every week condensed to its big idea, its traps, and worked mini-examples. Do the examples on paper.
2. The Practice Final — unlimited attempts, ungraded, instant feedback, and zero shared questions with the real exam. It will tell you the truth about what stuck.
3. The Exam-Prep Tutorial — paste the prompt, tell your chatbot what the practice exam exposed, and it will drill exactly that, ending in a 10-question mock round. Submit the share link + summary (10 points — the week's one submission besides the exam).
4. The Final — mid-week. Show up rested.

One number to carry into the week: 5%. The grade has lived in your weekly work all term — the tutorials, labs, assignments, discussions, and quizzes you've been stacking up since Week 1. The final can polish that story; it cannot undo it. Treat it as what it is: proof to yourself of how far you've come.

It has been a genuine pleasure to learn with you this term. Eighteen weeks ago a statistic was a number someone told you; now it's a claim you can question from every side — who was measured, how they were picked, what was actually recorded, and whether the arithmetic holds up. That skill goes with you into every field, every headline, and every meeting where someone says "the data show."

Open the Start Here / Module Overview page first, work the list in order, and go show that exam what eighteen steady weeks look like.

See you in the course!