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Every year, American high school students take SATs, which are standardized tests intended to measure literacy, numeracy, and writing skills. There are three sections - reading, math, and writing, each with a maximum score of 800 points. These tests are extremely important for students and colleges, as they play a pivotal role in the admissions process.
Analyzing the performance of schools is important for a variety of stakeholders, including policy and education professionals, researchers, government, and even parents considering which school their children should attend.
You have been provided with a dataset called schools.csv, which is previewed below.
You have been tasked with answering three key questions about New York City (NYC) public school SAT performance.
import pandas as pd
# Read in the data
schools = pd.read_csv("schools.csv")
# Find schools with math scores above a threshold
math_threshold = 640
best_math_schools = schools.loc[schools["average_math"] >= math_threshold, ["school_name", "average_math"]]
best_math_schools = best_math_schools.sort_values("average_math", ascending=False)
# Calculate total SAT scores per school
schools["total_SAT"] = schools[["average_math", "average_reading", "average_writing"]].sum(axis=1)
# Get the top 10 performing schools based on total SAT scores
top_10_schools = schools.nlargest(10, "total_SAT")[["school_name", "total_SAT"]]
# Determine the NYC borough with the highest standard deviation for total SAT scores
borough_std_dev = schools.groupby("borough")["total_SAT"].agg(["count", "mean", "std"]).round(2)
largest_std_dev = borough_std_dev.loc[borough_std_dev["std"].idxmax()].rename(
{"count": "num_schools", "mean": "average_SAT", "std": "std_SAT"}
).to_frame().T.reset_index().rename(columns={"index": "borough"})
# Print the results
print("NYC Schools with the Best Math Results:")
print(best_math_schools)
print("\nTop 10 Performing Schools Based on Total SAT Scores:")
print(top_10_schools)
print("\nBorough with the Highest Standard Deviation in Combined SAT Score:")
print(largest_std_dev)