Question Bank / Math / Evaluating Statistical Claims
Evaluating statistical claims: Observational studies and experiments SAT question
Math · Problem-Solving and Data Analysis · Easy · Answer it here, explanation included.
The members of a city council wanted to assess the opinions of all city residents about converting an open field into a dog park. The council surveyed a sample of 500 city residents who own dogs. The survey showed that the majority of those sampled were in favor of the dog park. Which of the following is true about the city council’s survey?
ExplanationShow
Choice D is correct. The members of the city council wanted to assess opinions of all city residents. To gather an unbiased sample, the council should have used a random sampling design to select subjects from all city residents. The given survey introduced a sampling bias because the 500 city residents surveyed were all dog owners. This sample is not representative of all city residents because not all city residents are dog owners.
Choice A is incorrect because when the sampling method isn’t random, there is no guarantee that the survey results will be reliable; hence, they cannot be generalized to the entire population. Choice B is incorrect because a larger sample of residents who are dog owners would not correct the sampling bias. Choice C is incorrect because a survey sample of entirely non–dog owners would likely have a biased opinion, just as a sample of dog owners would likely have a biased opinion.
Drill this skill on Aceit
Adaptive practice, a daily plan, and score tracking take a free account so we can save your work.
More Evaluating statistical claims: Observational studies and experiments questions
- A sample of 40 fourth-grade students was selected at random from a certain school. The 40 students completed a survey about the morning announcements, and 32 thought the announceme
- Residents of a town were surveyed to determine whether they are satisfied with the concession stand at the local park. A random sample of 200 residents was selected. All 200 respon
- A survey was conducted using a sample of history professors selected at random from the California State Universities. The professors surveyed were asked to name the publishers of
- A trivia tournament organizer wanted to study the relationship between the number of points a team scores in a trivia round and the number of hours that a team practices each week.
- A psychologist designed and conducted a study to determine whether playing a certain educational game increases middle school students' accuracy in adding fractions. For the study,
- A polling agency recently surveyed 1,000 adults who were selected at random from a large city and asked each of the adults, "Are you satisfied with the quality of air in the city?"