Summer Preparation: Probability

Incoming MBA students to Mason School of Business are expected to have a solid understanding of probability. Use materials provided here to learn or review the concepts. Feel free to skip right to the self-assessment at the end, if you are already familiar with probability.

Watch the following lectures on probability by the instructor. Then practice your knowledge using the Khan Academy links.

The instructor's exercises are available on this Class Data Demos on Google Sheets page

Lecture 0: Welcome (PPT)
Lecture 1: What is Probability? (PPT)

• Khan Academy Practice: Simple Probabilities
• Khan Academy Practice: Comparing Probabilities
• Khan Academy Practice: Subsets

Lecture 2: Set Operations (PPT)

• Khan Academy Practice: Basic Set Notations
• Khan Academy Practice: Conditional Probability
• A short animation about conditional probability, also known as Bayes' Rule, by Harvard's Stat110x course.

Lecture 3: Set Operation Rules (PPT)

• Khan Academy Practice: Addition Rule
• Khan Academy Practice: Adding Probabilities
• Khan Academy Quiz 1

Lecture 4: Disjoint & Independent Events (PPT)

• Khan Academy Practice: Independent Probabilities
• Khan Academy Practice: Dependent Probabilities
• Khan Academy Quiz 2

Case Study: Using Probability in Search-and-Rescue Operations | Prediction by the Numbers (PBS LearningMedia for Teachers)

Self-Assessments

• Khan Academy Final Test
• Exercise Problems from Instructor (Download PPT to see solution in the notes section)

References
Chapter 3, Introductory Statistics by the openStax at Rice University
Probability course on Khan Academy
Comprehensive cheat sheet on all things probability

Besides probability, you are also expected to be comfortable with these two additional topics:

• Algebra: If your mathematics is a little rusty, I encourage you to brush up on your algebra skills before you arrive. There are on-line resources available to you at Khan Academy and WooTube. The summer MBA bootcamp will also cover important math skills, including Greek letters for mathematics, and logarithm, which we will use extensively in the course.
• Excel: The summer MBA bootcamp covers essential Excel skills you will need for this course. You should also use Lynda.com tutorials as needed.

Most importantly, you should begin to pay attention to data analysis in business news and literature. Listen to the Freakconomics and Stats + Stories podcasts regularly, check out the Harvard Data Science Review, and read a couple of relevant books, such as The Signal and the Noise, Moneyball, Freakonomics, Superfreakonomics, Superforecasting, Thinking Fast and Slow, Noise, and Naked Statistics.