Correlation and Causation quiz

More questions about Correlation and Causation

These visible examples show the question style. LearnClash turns the full topic into ranked duels and spaced repetition.

1. 1 Easy

   Whose yearly movie count tracks US pool drownings?

   Answer: Nicolas Cage

   Why: With only 11 yearly data points, two unrelated lines can easily match by chance.

2. 2 Medium

   Anscombe's four datasets show which step can't be skipped?

   Answer: Plotting the data

   Why: One set is a noisy line, one a curve, one a line with an outlier, and one a vertical stack with one distant point.

3. 3 Hard

   Which university's 1973 admissions data shows Simpson's paradox?

   Answer: UC Berkeley

   Why: More women applied to the hardest departments to enter, which dragged down their overall rate even though most departments admitted women at equal or higher rates.

4. 4 Easy

   What do trials call hiding who got the real treatment?

   Answer: Blinding

   Why: Hiding the assignment from the researchers too makes it less likely that their expectations colour the results.

5. 5 Medium

   A 1964 report from which US office said smoking causes lung cancer?

   Answer: Surgeon General

   Why: The committee reviewed more than 7,000 scientific articles before it called smoking a cause of lung cancer in men.

6. 6 Hard

   Smokers taking which supplement had more lung cancer in 1990s trials?

   Answer: Beta-carotene

   Why: CARET was stopped 21 months early when the supplement group showed 28% more lung cancers than the placebo group.