Quote:
Originally Posted by
rdawson808 
Unless I'm missing something, he can't know this. This hinges on him wanting no risk.
As I read it, another way to state his question is "how many of the terms do I need to study to guarantee that I have studied the ones that will be asked?" (I'm ignoring the word "particularly" because it is undefined.) The inherent problem is that he has zero knowledge of which ones the prof will choose. So each has equal probability of showing up. And that probability is positive. Therefore he must study each.
But I'm no probability expert. I could be missing something.
Actually, if it's probability you want, here's a few good statistics relative to this issue:
So, you will have to answer three questions out of 27 concepts - that's 1 in 27, or roughly 4% chance of being tested on each concept. However, reality tends to work its magic so that:
if you study 13 concepts, you ought to have a 47% chance of your chosen questions being on the exam. however - in practice this runs closer to 12% due to game theory and quantium statistics.
If you study 14 concepts *(commonly known as the "tipping Point" because you've just gone over 50%), you ought to have a 52% chance of your studied questions making the exam, but due to probabilistic tendencies and random chance - you're more likely to experience a 15% exam proficiency rate.
If you study 21 concepts, though - this is 50% more than the tipping point of 14, and therefore...well, I'll cut through the jargon and theoretical aspects of probabililstic calculus and Murphy's Law and tell you that your exam proficiency rate will skyrocket to 30%.
So, if you want to answer three questions well, I think that studying all 27, plus a few spares, should give you a good shot.
