# Hard exemplary problem sets to work through to solidify my understanding of statistical concepts?

Over the years, I picked up many Statistics Concepts in by a variety of situations and means. I studied some Statistics maybe for a couple semesters almost 10 years back. But I also picked up concepts while doing Machine Learning work. I only understood things in a narrow scope - I always tried to get away knowing only what I need to know for a project etc.

Consequently, I do not have a big picture understanding of Statistics. For eg. I know vaguely what a t-test is and what a chi-square test is. But I can't relate both these concepts solidly in my head. And without relating each of these concepts I feel they are useless and not as powerful.

I have come to understand that the only way I understand anything is by working on hard problems chosen by experts. It should be hard so that I take some time to work it, also it should be chosen carefully by experts so that each problem contains a 'moral' which takes me one step closer to enlightenment.

So, help me assemble a set of problems to work through to seek out zen through statistics. Scope is all of statistics (regression, ANOVA, t-tests etc, Structural Equations of Latent Variables etc).

• Looks like a good candidate for a Community-Wiki question. – chl Apr 12 '11 at 7:52
• @chl, that makes sense. Go ahed if you have the privileges. – jason Apr 12 '11 at 14:01
• I know two excellent series of exercises from Ecole Polytechnique: "Petites classes de statistique", the first one by Christian Robert and the second one by Olivier Cappé. But there are written in French. Type "Petites classes de statistique" in Google and you will find. – Stéphane Laurent Jul 15 '12 at 16:39
• A large number of the questions posted on this very site provide problems ranging from easy to impossible. The replies provide a richer set of answers than any problem set or textbook could possibly offer, because they often represent multiple different attempts at solutions. – whuber Jul 25 '12 at 15:19

Rice's textbook provides the theory that justifies most of the statistical tests and methods which are used in introductory statistical courses. For example, it derives the $t$ and $\chi^2$ distributions and describes how they can be used to construct statistical tests. By contrast, most introductory statistical texts list the different distributions and tests but do not derive them.