Deck 6: Introduction to Inferential Statistics: Sampling and the Sampling Distribution

Question 1

Statistics are to parameters as

A)samples are to populations.
B)populations are to samples.
C)medians are to standard deviations.
D)percentages are to proportions.

Answer 1

samples are to populations.

Question 2

There are about 70 million eligible voters in a society.A public opinion pollster has estimated their probable choices for the next president with a sample of 2,000 randomly selected citizens.In this example,the 2,000 citizens are a ____ and the 70 million eligible voters are a ____.

A)sampling distribution,sample distribution
B)population,cluster
C)cluster,proportion
D)sample,population

Answer 2

sample,population

Question 3

A sample selected according to the principle of EPSEM is extremely likely to be

A)large.
B)biased.
C)representative.
D)inaccurate.

Answer 3

representative.

Question 4

A researcher questioned 45 randomly-selected members of the freshman class about their experiences drinking alcohol and used these responses to estimate the drinking behavior of the entire freshman class of 1500.In this example,the 45 interviewees were the ____ and the ____ was the population.

A)sample,student body
B)parameters,freshman class
C)statistics,parameters
D)sample,freshman class

Question 5

The simple random sample requires

A)a defined population.
B)a complete list of all cases in the population.
C)a random selection process.
D)all of the above

Question 6

Social scientists gather data from samples instead of populations because

A)samples are much larger and more complete.
B)samples are more trustworthy.
C)populations are often too large to test.
D)samples are more meaningful and interesting.

Question 7

To select a simple random sample,a researcher needs

A)a list of the population and system for selecting cases according to EPSEM.
B)a list of the sample and a well developed sampling distribution.
C)a sampling distribution and a table of random numbers.
D)a parameter and a cluster.

Question 8

A researcher tests a theory about sexism by administering a survey to the 200 students in her sociology classes.This sample is best characterized as a

A)cluster sample.
B)stratified random sample.
C)non-probability sample.
D)sampling distribution.

Question 9

Social scientists use inferential statistics to generalize to populations after they have

A)collected a representative sample.
B)collected all the information possible from the entire population.
C)collected an EPSEM sample from the population of interest.
D)collected at least 100 cases from all possible populations.

Question 10

The fundamental principle of probability sampling is that a sample selected by ____ is very likely to be ____.

A)EPSEM,representative
B)stratification,large
C)telephone polls,cheap
D)clusters,stratified

Question 11

Compared to probability samples,non-probability samples

A)are usually cheaper to assemble.
B)are always much larger.
C)are usually more expensive to assemble.
D)allow for generalizations to populations.

Question 12

Unless a sample is ____,it cannot be used to make accurate generalizations to a population.

A)very large
B)non-probability
C)representative
D)stratified

Question 13

Tables of random numbers,such as the one available at the website for this text,provide one way to assure

A)compliance with the rule of EPSEM.
B)cheap samples.
C)representative samples.
D)large samples.

Question 14

In systematic random sampling,the researcher randomly selects

A)the first case and every kth case thereafter.
B)cases following any systematic pattern.
C)every other case.
D)cases according to their scores.

Question 15

For a simple random sample,each case and each combination of cases in the population must

A)be representative.
B)be included in the sample.
C)be contacted by the researcher.
D)have an equal probability of being chosen for the sample.

Question 16

Samples are to populations as

A)big is to little.
B)central tendency is to dispersion.
C)measures are to variables.
D)statistics are to parameters.

Question 17

Statistics are characteristics of samples while ____ are characteristics of ____.

A)percentages,populations.
B)medians,clusters.
C)parameters,stratified samples.
D)parameters,populations.

Question 18

If a sample is representative,it

A)is stratified.
B)is restricted to the calculation of parameters only.
C)reproduces the characteristics of the population.
D)resembles the sampling distribution.

Question 19

The goal of all techniques for selecting probability samples is to select samples that are

A)very large.
B)non-random.
C)easily located.
D)representative.

Question 20

The main problem with non-probability samples is that they

A)do not allow us to generalize to a population.
B)are far too expensive.
C)are much too large.
D)can only be assembled using the technique of cluster sampling.

Question 21

Results from cluster samples

A)are always representative of the population.
B)are never representative of the population.
C)should be treated with more caution than results from simple random samples.
D)should never be used to generalize to a population.

Question 22

I use the principle of EPSEM to select a sample from my church for an opinion poll.The sample

A)is guaranteed to be representative of the population.
B)has a high probability of being representative.
C)should never be larger than 100.
D)should be larger than the population.

Question 23

According to the theorems presented in Chapter 6,we can be sure that the sampling distribution is normal if

A)the population is small.
B)the population is normal.
C)the sample is stratified.
D)the sample is normal.

Question 24

Cluster sampling often involves selecting

A)geographical areas.
B)systematic stratified clusters.
C)older respondents only.
D)cases alphabetically.

Question 25

The theorems presented in Chapter 6 tell us that if a sample is "large," the sampling distribution will be

A)the same shape as the population.
B)normal.
C)small.
D)irrelevant.

Question 26

When a list of the population does not exist,the probability sampling technique most commonly used is

A)simple random.
B)stratified.
C)systematiC.
D)cluster.

Question 27

The standard deviation of the sampling distribution is represented by which of the following symbol(s)?

A)s / N
B)(s)(N)
C) $\sqrt { \sigma / N }$
D) $\sigma / \sqrt { N }$

Question 28

An EPSEM sampling technique that often uses geographical areas is called

A)cluster sampling.
B)simple random sampling.
C)proportional sampling.
D)non-scientific sampling.

Question 29

A properly selected cluster sample is

A)quite small.
B)non-probability.
C)EPSEM.
D)the population.

Question 30

In a sampling distribution of sample means,most of the sample means will

A)cluster around the true population value.
B)be below the population mean in value.
C)be above the population mean in value.
D)not follow any particular pattern.

Question 31

With a sample size of 75,a normal sampling distribution can be assumed if

A)the cases in the sample are homogeneous.
B)the cases in the sample are heterogeneous.
C)the population distribution is normal.
D)the sample distribution is normal.

Question 32

When using systematic sampling,the researcher must

A)select only representative cases.
B)make sure that the list of the population is random or,at least,non-cyclical with respect to the variables of interest.
C)select every case.
D)select only respondents who are likely to cooperate.

Question 33

The purpose of inferential statistics is to acquire knowledge of the ____ from the ____ by means of the ____ distribution

A)population,sample,sampling
B)sample,sampling,population
C)inductive,empirical,stratified
D)theoretical,empirical,theoretical

Question 34

The mean age of all college graduates is 35.If the population distribution is normal,the mean of any sampling distribution of sample mean ages of college graduates will be

A)within plus or minus 1 standard deviation of 35.
B)close to 35.
C)35.
D)determined by the size of the distribution.

Question 35

Both the sample and the population distributions are empirical,which means that they are

A)theoretical.
B)real.
C)ordinal.
D)stratifieD.

Question 36

The sampling distribution links the ____ to the ____.

A)stratified,EPSEM
B)statistical,empirical
C)sample,population
D)empirical,real

Question 37

A sampling technique that allows you to ensure proportional representativeness in a sample is

A)representative sampling.
B)stratified sampling.
C)systematic sampling.
D)simple sampling.

Question 38

A major limitation for stratified sampling is that

A)the samples so selected are not representative.
B)it violates the rule of EPSEM.
C)the samples are non-random.
D)the exact composition of the population is usually unknown.

Question 39

Unlike the sample and population distributions,the sampling distribution is

A)empirical.
B)theoretical.
C)random.
D)EPSEM.

Question 40

What are the three distributions involved in every application of inferential statistics?

A)sample,sampling,and population
B)sample,stratification,cluster
C)EPSEM,random,probability
D)sampling,percentage,normal

Question 41

In comparing a sampling distribution with a population distribution,

A)there will always be more variance in the sampling distribution.
B)there will always be more variance in the population distribution.
C)as the size of the sample increases the two distributions will become identical.
D)the two distributions will always be the same.

Question 42

The shape of the sampling distribution of sample means can be assumed to be normal when N is

A)a large percentage of the population.
B)any number as long as you know the value of the population mean.
C)100 or more.
D)at least twice the value of the population standard deviation.

Question 43

In your own words,explain the purpose of inferential statistics.Include in your essay the concepts of sample,population,statistic,parameter,representativeness,and the principle of EPSEM.Make sure that you define each of these terms as you develop your essay.

Question 44

A researcher wanted to learn something about the religious affiliation of the students at the local college (e.g. ,what percent were Catholic,Jewish,etc.).This information was not available from the Registrar and the researcher was working with a very limited budget.Therefore,she used the principle pf EPSEM to select a group of 200 students,called each of them at home,and conducted a brief interview.She was able to develop many conclusions based on this information.For example,she found that 50 of the 200 respondents were Catholic and concluded that about 25% of students at the college would claim the same religious affiliation.
Identify each of the following elements in this research scenario and explain their importance:

A)Population
B)Sample
C)Parameter
D)Statistic
E)EPSEM
F)Representative

Question 45

Using the General Social Survey as an example,the concept of the sampling distribution allows us to link the sample of about ____ respondents to the population of about ____ adult Americans

A)10,000,200 million
B)225 million,3000
C)1 million,300 million
D)3,000 or 4,000,225 million

Question 46

Your sample size is 1000.It is safe to assume that

A)the shape of the sampling distribution of sample means is normal.
B)the sample is representative of the population.
C)the population distribution is normal.
D)the sample distribution is normal.

Question 47

I surveyed 48 randomly-selected residents of the apartment complex where I live to determine their voting habits.I can only use this information to generalize to all the residents if

A)there is evidence of a normal population distribution.
B)the 48 residents all have the same voting habits.
C)the 48 residents are equally divided in their voting habits.
D)the sample distribution is not normal in shape.

Question 48

When we use larger samples (N > 100),we can assume a normal sampling distribution because of

A)common sense.
B)the Central Limit Theorem.
C)what we know about the population.
D)what we know about the sample.

Question 49

By the theorems presented in the text,we know that the mean of a sampling distribution of sample means will be

A)the same as the population mean.
B)close to the value of the sample mean.
C)between the population and sample means in value.
D)representative of the entire population.

Question 50

Explain and briefly distinguish between simple random sampling,systematic random sampling,stratified random sampling,and cluster sampling.Which of these techniques is designed to guarantee representativeness? How?

Question 51

The General Social Survey (GSS)is an example of a

A)sample.
B)sampling distribution.
C)population.
D)all of the above

Question 52

The standard error of the mean is the same thing as

A)the standard deviation of a sample.
B)the standard deviation of a population.
C)the standard deviation of a sampling distribution.
D)the variance of a sample.

Question 53

Define and distinguish between the sample distribution,the sampling distribution,and the population distribution.How are these three distributions related to each other in inferential statistics? What symbols are used to identify the means and standard deviations of each of the three distributions?

Question 54

The Central Limit Theorem states that as sample size becomes large,

A)the sampling distribution of sample means approaches normality.
B)the sampling distribution of sample means becomes larger.
C)the population distribution becomes normal.
D)the sample distribution becomes normal.