Rating: 
Summary: Overall, very poor intro for stat beginngers
Review: Although I do not believe that this book is the TRUE embodyment of evil like the other reviewer, I believe that this book is not at all a good introduction to Satistics for a beginner. The examples are poor and the text is at times incomprehensible. I hope that someone, someday creates a stat book that will combat the boring stat professors and write a decent book for students to read. Btw: If this book didn't cost so much it would be the first book of my college career that I would have burned and enjoyed
Rating: 
Summary: Inadequate introduction to mathematical statistics
Review: As a graduate student in statistics, I learned to hate this textbook. The text is filled with plenty of formulas, but lacks plain English explanations and illustrations. Many of the subjects, such as the treatment of functions of jointly distributed random variables (Z = X + Y, Z = X/Y, etc.) in Chapter 3, are completely inadequate. I needed more diagrams so that I could wrap my mind around these concepts and understand them at an intuitive, geometric level. I also failed to understand the importance of Sufficiency and the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound in Chapter 8. These subjects seemed to lack any real-world applications and are just math games as far as I'm concerned. Avoid this book like the plague if you're a beginner in statistics. It'll turn you off to the subject!
Rating:
Summary: One Star is being generous....
Review: As a textbook for a course in probability theory, the 2nd edition leaves much to be desired. While the author has stuffed the current edition with numerous and often quite interesting examples of real applications, he neglects to develop the material in a coherent and a structured manner which illuminates important concepts and assists the reader in making the connection between theory and application. At best, the text is a compedium of interesting and novel examples. But to become an effective teaching tool, the second edition demands an extensive overhaul. In addition, the lack of a solution guide for the numerous problems at the end of each chapter further diminishes the utility of the second edition as an instructional device. Many of the problems are quite demanding. They are made even harder to tackle and solve than necessary by the author's failure to present and systematically development the basic concepts necessary to arrive at a solution. All-in-all, I would advise instructors to think twice before adopting the second edition as the required text. As for fellow students, if luck is against you and you have been assigned the text, I advise purchasing the Schaum guide at a minimum and, funds permitting, a text by a more student friendly author such as Freund.
Rating:
Summary: If you have a choice choose a different book
Review: I bought and used this book for a probability class and for preparation for the Society of Actuaries (SOA) exam course 1. I had never had a probability or statistics class and this book did a very poor job of helping me to understand the topics. I had to resort to using other books not required for the class in order to understand anything. I did not pass the the SOA exam and I blame that, in part, on this stupid book. I also had about 50 class mates, all of which had just as much disgust for the book as I did. Not disgust for the class but for the book.
Rating:
Summary: If you have a choice choose a different book
Review: I bought and used this book for a probability class and for preparation for the Society of Actuaries (SOA) exam course 1. I had never had a probability or statistics class and this book did a very poor job of helping me to understand the topics. I had to resort to using other books not required for the class in order to understand anything. I did not pass the the SOA exam and I blame that, in part, on this stupid book. I also had about 50 class mates, all of which had just as much disgust for the book as I did. Not disgust for the class but for the book.
Rating:
Summary: Return of Black Death - The best book to ensure confusion
Review: I have been using this book as the "foundation" of my statistics studies for two semesters - as a result, I have encountered great difficult in comprehending the subject. This is one of the most student-unfriendly books I have ever encountered. Its "examples" are unclear, vaigue, and confusing. It is because of books like this that Statistics Study Guides are published. Amazon.com does not offer a "0 Star" value for its rating system. Infact, and infinitely long "negative star" rating would be more representitive of this book's rating. Stat Professors, hear our prayers: please do not use this book.
Stat Students using this book: You might want to consider purchasing a Study-guide type of book, because I assure you that most of you will *not* find this book enjoyable, helpful, or useful.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Math-Statistics Book Ever written
Review: I have taken many math courses and as a result have read many math texts-from Abelian group theory to nonlinear functional analysis. I am convinced that this book is absolutely the worst math book ever written. The author is simply incapable of expressing the material. He believes that "theoretical and abstract" are synonymous with "making things it difficult to understand." For instance, in chapter 11 when he is trying to teach nonparametric estimation methods, he rambles on for whole page on how the data should be ranked. It's elementary stuff that could be expressed in 4 sentences. Also, he provides the tables (not very good ones) for the t distribution; yet, there is not ONE comment on how the tables are to be used. Most students use outside sources to learn the material. Furthermore, the author doesn't provide the intuition behind most of the concepts. Statistics in inherently an applied subject and without grasping the intuition behind why you do what do you, the student merely memorizes formulas.
Rating: 
Summary: Get another if you have a choice.
Review: I've done a lot of undergraduate work in statistics. I am comfortable with using it all over the place, and just repetitive practice leads to sudden flashes of insight into the subject matter for me. This book totally turned me off statistics. I feel this book's claims to 'applicability' are pure hogwash. What I believe this book is, is a rather abstruse expedition into the 'why statistics works' from a math/calculus perspective. If you're a math major, sure this book will let you take a supercilious look at the hodgepodge of statistical theory (there was actually such a person in my course, and boy did he irritate everybody!). For the rest of us, when you see a calculus integral that takes paras to explain, and the end of it Rice declaims, So, you see, this is the probability! we're just gonna go.. Huh! you jerk, you took all that dicking about to get to this?! The exercises are all straight calculus buffoonery, take lots of time, and don't add to any insight to the subject WHATSOEVER. I came close to an A in this course, but the exercises were just a waste of time (and took a LOT of time). Avoid this book like the plague. A lecturing didactic, time-wasting, ugly, deathly plague. That said, I have a copy for sale if you want one! ;-) Cheerio,N(HTH!).
BTW I am sure it is a good book (though not for most of us) hence the 5 stars. Oh, and if you aren't obnoxiously chummy with calculus, don't even dream of getting this book. That said, some of the exercises are interesting in their own right, but hey, I'd rather read a Martin Gardner in that case!
Rating:
Summary: a poor introduction
Review: If I can save anyone the pain of using this book I would like to do it. This was used for my undergraduate course in mathematical statistics (the first statistics course for me). Fortunately, I had an excellent professor, and was able to learn the material from him and from other texts. Rice is extraordinarily difficult to understand. There are many examples of poor English with ambiguous sentences, algebraic errors, failure to emphasize or sometimes even to explain or define essential concepts, and obtuse end-of-chapter problems. In order to learn the material, I made use of several other textbooks, including Hogg & Craig and Bain & Englehart. Both of these books, in fact EVERY one of the ten or so books I used, was far better than Rice.
Rating: 
Summary: Good introductory text on data analysis
Review: Rice's book is a classic and good introductory text on data analysis. You should look elsewhere for a more rigorous treatment of mathematical statistics. Most of the proofs are left out and the focus seems to be on practice. There are lots of examples using real data but I thought at times that the examples tended to overwhelm the reader.
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