Hi Mike!
A political scientist wants to predict how the residents of New Jersey will react to a new bill. Which study design will provide the most reliable results?
A) Mailing a questionnaire to each of 200 randomly selected residents of NJ
B) Surveying a group of 300 randomly selected NJ residents
C) Interviewing a group of randomly selected students from a NJ public university
D) Surveying 1500 randomly selected US residents
The answer is B, but why wouldn’t it be A?
Thank you!
On page 224, I have a question about exercise #2 (Designing and Interpreting Experiments and Studies chapter in the Problem Solving and Data Analysis section). Is Ms. Carlisle’s class considered a random selection? If so, can you generalize the results from her study to only students in her class (like future ones as well) or also to all math students?
Can you explain question #24 in Practice Test #8 Section 4?
Please work form Test 2, section 4, #20
A researcher conducted a survey to determine whether people in a certain large town prefer watching sports on TV to attending the sporting event. She asked 117 people at a local restaurant on a Saturday, and 7 people refused to respond. Which of the following factors makes it least likely that a reliable conclusion can be drawn about the sports-watching preferences of all people in the town?
A) sample size
B) population size
C) The number of people who refused
D) Where survey was given
The new SAT will occasionally ask you questions about experimental design—whether the results of an study conducted by some students, for example, can be generalized to an entire population, or whether some experimental intervention has a causal impact. These questions will not be rocket science, and will not require any math at all, even though they’re in (more…)
