Section C Section C Checkpoint

Problem 1

You want to know what percentage of schools in the United States have a math teacher as the football coach.

  1. What is the population for this situation?
  2. Why might it be important to use a sample for this situation?
  3. What is a possible sample you could use for this situation?
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Solution
  1. All of the schools in the United States
  2. Sample response: It would be difficult to get data from every school in the United States, so we could use a sample to estimate the percentage.
  3. Sample response: We could pick a few schools from each state.
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Sample Response
  1. All of the schools in the United States
  2. Sample response: It would be difficult to get data from every school in the United States, so we could use a sample to estimate the percentage.
  3. Sample response: We could pick a few schools from each state.

Problem 2

Kiran wants to know what students at his school think about the theme for the homecoming dance. He is sitting with a group of friends at lunch, so he decides to ask them and use their responses as a sample.

  1. Why might this method for getting a sample not reflect the data for the population?
  2. Why might using more randomness in selecting people for the sample be better?
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Solution
Sample response:
  1. Because all of the people in the sample are friends, they might have similar interests and be biased one way or another and not match what the people in the school think.
  2. It will help avoid bias and be more likely to collect information from a group more representative of the population.
Show Sample Response
Sample Response
Sample response:
  1. Because all of the people in the sample are friends, they might have similar interests and be biased one way or another and not match what the people in the school think.
  2. It will help avoid bias and be more likely to collect information from a group more representative of the population.