<p>What's the hardest part about probability theory? I'm taking a calc based stats class this coming fall and would like a heads up.</p>
<p>Its pretty simple actually. You might find it more difficult to work 'intuitively' instead of slapping on a formula...For example, a problem might be given in words, and you have to convert and figure out what kind of model...hypergeometric, binary, whatever, its supposed to be. Wouldn't worry about it.</p>
<p>Probability is pretty simple, and pretty awesome.</p>
<p>^ Depends where you go. If you had easy professor, its just more plug-and-chug. The professor I had was so hard. Average was 33% on most test and he doesn't curve. I thought the real tricky part was knowing where to apply certain distribution like the hypergeometric distribution or the Possion distribution. The problems he gave us on the tests were so tricky I was never really sure whether I was using the right distribution...</p>
<p>Yea it depends on where you go to school and what professor you have. If your professor majored in statistics then I can bet your class will be tougher than it needs to be. </p>
<p>Stats and probs does not need to be a hard class. It can be understood without making it complicated. Luckily I had a middle grounds prof, it wasn't easy but it wasn't all that hard.</p>
<p>If the professor is bad enough and the exam is hard enough,any course will be extremely difficult,lol.
Introduction to probability is not supposed to be a hard course usually.</p>
<p>^ to tell you the truth, I'm glad I had him. Probability in my opinion should be hard and be more than the stuff they introduced to you in high school. At least, I know I won't be a mathematician. I feel sorry though for those who were just engineer and aspiring scientists who just need to take it ;)</p>
<p>IMO, probability can be very difficult for a couple of reasons. One is that a fair amount of combinatorics (which can also be difficult) is used to solve probability problems. Another is that subtle wording may change the meaning of a problem (and thus its solution).</p>
<p>Some examples:</p>
<p>Let's</a> Make a Deal
[url=<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Emike/articles/20thcSci/20thcent.html%5DComputer">http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/articles/20thcSci/20thcent.html]Computer</a> Science: The Search for a Mathematical Theory<a href="contains%20commentary%20on%20the%20difficulty%20of%20combinatorics">/url</a></p>