Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/iii/paper-102/1/b/solution

If a department has population , crimes against persons and crimes against property, cancellation of the common numerator gives
Thus is a property-to-person crime count ratio, not its reciprocal. Both counts must be positive for the printed ratio to be defined.
For the reconstructed 85-row data, fit a normal linear model for the Box–Cox transformation , including four region contrasts plus Literacy, Donations and Wealth. With and , the profile likelihood, up to constants, is
The second term is the transformation's Jacobian determinant; omitting it would incorrectly compare different response scales. Maximization gives , with approximate 95% likelihood-ratio confidence interval . The logarithmic transformation is inside this interval, whereas the raw-scale choice is far outside: the twice-log-likelihood drops at zero and one are and , respectively. A log-response model is therefore a simple supported choice.
In the full log model, partial F-tests give for Region (), for Wealth (), and for Literacy and Donations. Dropping Literacy and Donations together gives and . A parsimonious final normal linear model, with C as reference and , is
The standard errors in that order are ; residual standard deviation is on 79 degrees of freedom and . Use residual-versus-fitted and quantile-quantile plots, influence diagnostics and checks for remaining curvature to assess the working Gaussian model; the small p-values alone do not validate its assumptions.
Holding Region fixed, worsening wealth rank by ten positions multiplies the fitted conditional median ratio by . Relative to C at the same wealth rank, the fitted median multipliers are for E, for N, for S and for W. Region and wealth rank explain much of the variation; Literacy and Donations add little once those terms are included. These are associations in the reconstructed dataset. Back-transforming the fitted log mean gives a conditional median under lognormal errors; estimating an original-scale mean requires bias correction after an inverse transformation. Also, the public archive's metadata describe some historical measures differently from the exam wording, so the fitted Donations effect is interpreted only on its recorded scale.

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