AP STATISTICS
HW #2 – Sampling Procedures Practice
Write out your responses to these problems on SEPARATE PAPER.
1. Identify the type of sampling procedure (simple random, stratified, cluster, or systematic) used in each of the
following scenarios.
a) An ad agency gathers information about the habits of Texas consumers who live in very small towns (less than 100
adults). They randomly select 12 of these small towns and then interview all of the adults in each of these towns.
b) At the start of each shift, randomly select a number from 1 to 10, choose that person as they arrive and then test every
10th person after that who arrives for work.
c) There are four employee classifications: doctors, medical staff (nurses, techs, etc), office staff, support staff
(custodians, etc). Randomly select 10 employees from each category.
d) Ms. Hodge is curious about the number of hours that seniors spend writing their college essays. She numbers every
senior and uses a random number table to randomly select 50 seniors and gives those seniors a survey to complete.
e) A business wants to know what its customers think of a new product and they think that men and women may view
the product differently. A random sample of 45 men and 50 women is selected to complete a survey on the product.
f) The Podunk school district wishes to give a survey to some of its middle school students regarding the quality of the
school lunches served in the cafeteria. From the fifteen middle schools in the district, three of the schools are
randomly selected. The survey is then sent home to all of the students at those three selected schools.
2. The administration at a Central Podunk High School (CPHS) is trying to determine the mean number of minutes spent on
math homework by students at their school each week. The administration randomly selects 2 students from each of the
50 math classes on campus, to obtain a sample of 100 students. The mean number of minutes spent on math homework by
these 100 students is reported to be 81 minutes.
a) Identify the population of interest.
b) Identify the parameter of interest that the school administrators are trying to estimate.
c) Identify the sampling frame.
d) The mean amount of time was reported as 81 minutes. Is this value a parameter or a statistic?
3. Management at a high tech firm wishes to obtain an estimate for the proportion of its thousands of employees who use
mass transit to commute to/from work. On a typical workday, from the first 500 employees who arrive at work, the
company randomly selects a sample of 75 employees. 29.33% of those 75 employees report that they use mass transit to
commute to/from work. Suppose among ALL of the company’s employees, 30.1% use mass transit to commute to/from
work.
a) Identify the population of interest.
b) Identify the parameter of interest.
c) Identify the sampling frame.
d) Is this value “29.33%” a parameter or a statistic?
e) Is this value “30.1%” a parameter or a statistic?
For the problems on this page, please keep in mind that when asked to describe a random sampling procedure, your
description must be clear enough for another person to follow without confusion.
4. IPHONES Suppose 1,000 iPhones are produced at a factory today. Management would like to ensure that the
phones’ display screens meet their quality standards before shipping them to retail stores. Since it takes about 10
minutes to inspect an individual phone’s display screen, managers decide to inspect a sample of 20 phones from the
day’s production.
a) An eager employee suggests that it would be easy to inspect the last 20 iPhones that were produced today. Why
isn’t this a good idea?
b) Another employee recommends inspecting every 50th iPhone that is produced, starting with a randomly selected
phone among the first 50. What type of sampling procedure is this?
c) The defining characteristic of a simple random sample (SRS) is that – in this context – every possible
combination/sample of 20 phones must each have an equal probability of being selected. Explain why this
would not be true with the sampling technique mentioned in part (b).
5. GENDER DISCRIMINATION A corporation employs 250 engineers – 200 of whom are male, 50 of whom are
female. In response to allegations of gender-discrimination in the workplace, the human resources department
wishes to select a random sample of 25 employees to participate in a “workplace environment” survey. They decide
to select a stratified random sample of 20 males and 5 females to participate in the survey.
a) Carefully describe a process for randomly selecting such a sample.
b) Again, the defining characteristic of a simple random sample (SRS) is that – in this context – every possible
combination/sample of 25 employees must have an equal probability of being selected. Give at least one
example of a sample that could occur with a simple random sample that has no chance of occurring with the
stratified sampling technique in part (a).
c) One acceptable method of carrying out a simple random sample would be as follows:
Assign each of the 250 employees a unique number from 1 – 250
Write each number on a separate slip of paper (of roughly equal size), and put all 250 slips of paper into a
really large hat.
Stir the slips of paper around to mix them thoroughly.
Without looking, draw out 50 slips (without replacing any of them). The 50 employees that have their
numbers drawn will be asked to participate in the survey.
Name one statistical advantage of using a stratified random sample (as you described in part “a”) over using a
simple random sample. Explain why this is an advantage in the context of this situation.
6. HIGH-SPEED INTERNET Laying fiber-optic cable for high-speed internet is an expensive process. Cable
companies want to make sure that, if they extend their lines out to less dense suburban or rural areas, there will be
sufficient demand and the work will be cost-effective. In the rural town of Podunk, the local cable company decides
to conduct a survey to determine the proportion of households in a local subdivision that would buy their internet
service. The subdivision has 24 blocks, and each block has exactly 10 households, for a total of 240 households.
a) Carefully describe a method of randomly selecting 50 households by using a simple random sample (SRS).
b) For convenience, the cable company may opt to use a cluster sampling method, in which each of the 24 blocks
in the subdivision is treated as a cluster. Describe a process for randomly selecting 50 households using a
cluster sampling method.
