State statistical services: Statistical Officer / Assistant Statistical Officer (State PSCs and selection boards)

India · State Public Service Commissions and Subordinate Service Selection Boards · civil-service · unverified source

671practice questions written to this syllabus
22subjects

Format

Varies by state: usually an objective screening test in statistics and general studies, some with a descriptive paper and interview.

Sections

Over the years

Built from Laisha's knowledge because the official page could not be opened or was not found during research (web search quota exhausted); confirm against the body's current notification before relying on it. Posts sit in each state's Directorate of Economics and Statistics, which runs the crop-cutting experiments, the agricultural census and land-use statistics at state level. Examples include the TNPSC Combined Statistical Subordinate Services exam and RPSC Statistical Officer recruitment; no single state's scheme was read.

Official source: https://www.mospi.gov.in/

Subjects this exam draws on

Differential Equations, Finite Differences & Numerical Analysis5 questionsStatistical Methods for Agricultural Sciences88 questionsExploratory Data Analysis & Statistical Graphics18 questionsProbability Theory40 questionsProbability Distributions & Sampling Distributions43 questionsStochastic Processes18 questionsStatistical Inference I: Estimation32 questionsStatistical Inference II: Testing of Hypotheses & Sequential Analysis46 questionsNonparametric & Rank-Based Methods38 questionsMultivariate Analysis15 questionsCategorical Data Analysis & Generalized Linear Models4 questionsBayesian Inference19 questionsPrinciples of Experimental Design & Basic Designs7 questionsSampling Theory I: Simple, Stratified, Systematic, Ratio & Regression Estimation44 questionsSampling Theory II: Unequal Probability, Cluster, Multistage & Repeated Sampling3 questionsCrop Area & Yield Estimation: Crop-Cutting Experiments27 questionsAgricultural Statistics System, Census & Official Statistics26 questionsSurvey Design, Questionnaires, Field Operations & Non-Sampling Errors13 questionsDemography & Vital Statistics33 questionsIndex Numbers, National Accounts & Agricultural Economic Statistics7 questionsOptimization Techniques for Statisticians61 questionsStatistical Quality Control & Reliability84 questions

Five practice questions, worked

Original questions written to this exam's published syllabus and pattern. Not past papers.

1. For the values y = 1, 4, 9 at x = 1, 2, 3, the second difference Δ²y₁ is:

  1. 4
  2. 2
  3. 1
  4. 9
Answer and working

B. 2

Δy: 3, 5; Δ²y = 2, as for any x² with h = 1.

Differential Equations, Finite Differences & Numerical Analysis · Calculus of finite differences and difference operators

2. Which statement describes a genuine limitation of statistics as a science?

  1. It cannot be applied to biological data because living organisms vary too much
  2. It can only handle data collected by the investigator personally, never secondary data
  3. It requires every unit of a population to be measured before any conclusion is drawn
  4. It studies aggregates and cannot say anything certain about a single individual unit
Answer and working

D. It studies aggregates and cannot say anything certain about a single individual unit

Statistical laws hold for groups and on average; the mean yield of a variety says nothing certain about one plot. Biological variation is exactly what statistics handles, secondary data are routinely used, and sampling exists precisely to avoid complete enumeration.

Statistical Methods for Agricultural Sciences · Statistics: definition, uses and limitations; frequency distributions and curves

3. Disease severity on wheat leaves is scored 0 to 9 by eye. On which measurement scale are these scores?

  1. Nominal
  2. Interval
  3. Ratio
  4. Ordinal
Answer and working

D. Ordinal

The scores are ordered (9 is worse than 5) but the gaps between scores are not known to be equal, which is the definition of an ordinal scale. Nominal categories have no order at all.

Exploratory Data Analysis & Statistical Graphics · Types of data and measurement scales

4. In a survey of farms, P(A) = 0.6 that a farm grows maize, P(B) = 0.5 that it grows soybean, and P(A ∩ B) = 0.2 that it grows both. What is the probability that a randomly chosen farm grows neither crop?

  1. 0.2
  2. 0.9
  3. 0.1
  4. 0.3
Answer and working

C. 0.1

P(A ∪ B) = 0.6 + 0.5 − 0.2 = 0.9, so P(neither) = 1 − 0.9 = 0.1. The value 0.2 wrongly assumes independence, which the given P(A ∩ B) = 0.2 ≠ 0.3 rules out; 0.9 is the union itself.

Probability Theory · Sample spaces, sigma-fields and the axioms of probability

5. A binomial variable has mean 6 and variance 2.4. What is n?

  1. 25
  2. 10
  3. 6
  4. 15
Answer and working

B. 10

q = variance/mean = 2.4/6 = 0.4, so p = 0.6 and n = 6/0.6 = 10. 15 comes from taking p = 0.4 (confusing p with q); 6 confuses n with the mean.

Probability Distributions & Sampling Distributions · Discrete distributions: Bernoulli, binomial, Poisson, geometric, negative binomial, hypergeometric and multinomial

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