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The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
More product info From Richard Preston

Amazon Reviews for  The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
Rating:
549 Ratings
208 Reviews
("Ratings" vs. "Reviews")
0% of potentially unnatural reviews removed (why?)
Adjusted:
View/Edit Adjustment
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Report Info:
Last Updated: Jul 19, 2021
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Note: While Amazon.com claims 549 Ratings, we counted 208 Reviews available on their site.
Note: We only analyze "reviews" and ignore one-tap "ratings".

Report Card

Pass Overall Grade
FAIL Deleted Reviews
FAIL Suspicious Reviewers
WARN Rating Trend
WARN Reviewer Participation
PASS Unverified Purchases
PASS Word Count Comparison
PASS Phrase Repetition
PASS Overlapping Review History
PASS Reviewer Ease
PASS Brand Repeats
PASS Incentivized Reviews

Most Trusted Reviews

Sep 4, 2018      
100% TRUST
  • Verified Purchaser
  • Take-Back Reviewer (2 deleted Reviews; avg. rating: 5.0)
  • Easy Grader (avg. rating: 4.9)


Least Trusted Reviews

Presented the book as a gift. Read it 10 plus ... [Go to full review]
Aug 13, 2014      
43% TRUST
  • Unverified Purchaser
  • Created on a high volume day
  • Overrepresented Participation (posted 14 Reviews)
  • Easy Grader (avg. rating: 4.7)


Analysis Details

Fail Deleted Reviews

We discovered a total of 17 deleted Reviews for this product, with an average rating of 4.2. Even though deleted reviews don't affect the average rating, the fact that action was taken to delete reviews raises some red flags about the integrity of the reviews for the product as whole.

There are a few limitations to keep in mind regarding the Deleted Reviews test:
  1. We don't have a magic ability to collect every single deleted review; we can only identify reviews as deleted if we collect them on one date and then notice they are no longer visible on a subsequent date.
  2. We have no information on reviews that were never published in the first place.
  3. We also don't know why these reviews were removed. It could be action from the platform, personal decision by the review author, part of an entire account closure, even some data error on our part, etc.
Read more about our Deleted Reviews test.

4.2 average rating of deleted reviews

4.2


Show distribution of deleted reviews

Fail Suspicious Reviewers

Take-Back Reviewers


122 of the 208 reviewers have had at least one of their past reviews for another product deleted. This is an excessively large percentage of Take-Back Reviewers which may indicate unnatural reviews.

from take-back reviewers

from reviewers without previously deleted reviews


4.6
4.5


Read more about our Suspicious Reviewers test.

Warn Rating Trend

  • 6%
  • Created over 6 days

We counted 208 reviews for this product over the span of 7,853 days, an average of 0.0 reviews per day. If these reviews were created randomly, there would be a 99.9% chance that we would see 1 or fewer reviews on any given day.

However, we see the following 6 days exceeding this threshold:In total, we found that 12 reviews were created on just 6 days. Although any days with a larger number of reviews than expected is suspicious, these reviews do not appear to have a significant impact on the overall rating.

from reviews created on high volume days

from reviews created on normal volume days


4.5
4.6


Read more about our Rating Trend test.

Warn Reviewer Participation

  • 46%
  • From reviewers with an overrepresented participation

We see the following 2 participation groups with a statistically significant greater concentration than what we'd expect to see:In total, we found that 96 reviewers (or 46%) are within an overrepresented participation group. While this is more reviews from overrepresented participation groups than we'd expect to see, these reviews do not appear to have a significant impact on the overall rating.

From reviewers with an overrepresented participation

From reviewers with a properly represented participation


4.5
4.6


Read more about our Reviewer Participation test.

Pass Unverified Purchases

103 of the 208 total reviews for this product are unverified purchases. This is within an acceptable range and it does not appear to be significantly affecting the overall rating for this product.

from unverified purchasers

from verified purchases


4.4
4.7


Unverified purchases may be the result of Kindle Unlimited readers, buyers who didn't pay full price, or reviewers who did not purchase the product at Amazon. Read more about our Unverified Purchases test.

Pass Word Count Comparison

  • 0%
  • Have an overrepresented word count
We didn't find any review word count groups that had a statistically significant greater concentration than what we'd expect to see in this category.
Read more about our Word Count Comparison test.

Pass Phrase Repetition
Reviews that contain one of these phrases are NOT necessarily devalued; read more about how this test works here.

Common Phrases in Reviews:
7 reviews
(3.9/5)
5 reviews
(4.8/5)
9 reviews
(4.4/5)
2 reviews
(5.0/5)
6 reviews
(4.3/5)
5 reviews
(5.0/5)
7 reviews
(4.9/5)
Show MoreShow Less
Common Phrases in Titles:
2 reviews
(3.0/5)
2 reviews
(5.0/5)
2 reviews
(4.0/5)
4 reviews
(4.5/5)
Show MoreShow Less


23 of the 208 total reviews for this product use substantial repetitive phrases between them. This is within an acceptable range and it does not appear to be significantly affecting the overall rating for this product.

from reviews with substantial repetitive phrases

from reviews without substantial repetitive phrases


4.8
4.5


Read more about our Phrase Repetition test.

Pass Overlapping Review History
Reviewers of this product have ALSO reviewed the following products:

9% also reviewed:
Katherine by Anya Seton

8% also reviewed:
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

5% also reviewed:
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

Does not include products
from the same brand


9 of the 208 reviewers have substantial overlapping product review history. This is within an acceptable range and it does not appear to be significantly affecting the overall rating for this product.

from reviewers with substantial overlapping history

from reviewers without a substantial overlapping history


4.7
4.6


Read more about our Overlapping Review History test.

Pass Reviewer Ease
The ease score is the average rating for all reviews that a given reviewer submits. The average ease score for reviewers of this product is 4.3, while the average ease score for reviewers in this category is 4.4.

4.3 Product's Average Ease Score

4.4 Category's Average Ease Score


4.3
4.4


Read more about our Reviewer Ease test.


Pass Brand Repeats

Brand Repeaters


22 of the 208 reviewers have reviewed other products for this brand. This is within an acceptable range and it does not appear to be significantly affecting the overall rating for this product.

from Brand Repeaters

from Non-Repeaters


4.7
4.6


Read more about our Brand Repeats test.

Pass Incentivized Reviews
On Oct 3, 2016, Amazon prohibited incentivized reviews, however we still test for them since there are still millions in our dataset.

  • 0%
  • Admitted to receiving an incentive
We didn't detect any reviews that used language indicating they were incentivized.
Read more about our Incentivized Reviews test. Check out our study showing that Incentivized Reviewers are much more likely to leave a positive review.