Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / iii / Paper 218 / 6 / a

For the residual-versus-fitted plot, compute fitted values ${\hat{y}}_i={\hat{\beta }}_0+{\hat{\beta }}_1{x}_{i1}+{\hat{\beta }}_2{x}_{i2}$ and regression residuals $e_i=y_i-{\hat{y}}_i$; the plotted point is $({\hat{y}}_i,e_i)$.

For the normal Q-Q plot, let $H=X(X^{T}X{)}^{-1}{X}^T$ be the hat matrix for the full three-column design matrix and let $s^2=\mathrm{RSS}/(n-3)$. Form the standardized regression residualsand order them as $r_{(1)}\le \cdots \le r_{(n)}$. R plots $r_{(j)}$ against ${\Phi }^{-1}(p_j)$, where $p_j$ are its plotting positions. For $n>10$, $p_j=(j-1/2)/n$; $\Phi$ is the standard normal distribution function. This standardization is specified in R's diagnostic-plot documentation.

The original PDF shows a residual cloud around zero without compelling systematic curvature or a clear funnel, and a Q-Q pattern approximately following the reference line. Observations 81 and 83 are conspicuous positive tail points, with a smaller lower-tail departure. The plots show no decisive violation of linearity, constant variance or normality, but the extreme residuals merit inspection. They do not test independence across observations and cannot establish that all model assumptions hold.