Question

for the following situations, would you collect information using a sample or a population?
a. statistics 201 is a course taught at a university. professor rauch has taught nearly 1,500 students in the course over the past 5 years. you would like to know the average grade for the course.
b. as part of a research project, you need to report the average profit as a percentage of revenue for the number 1-ranked corporation in the fortune 500 for each of the last 10 years.
c. you are looking forward to graduation and your first job as a salesperson for one of five large pharmaceutical corporations. planning for your interviews, you will need to know about each companys mission, profitability, products, and markets.
d. you are shopping for a portable generator to provide electricity when you lose power. to buy the best generator, you need to estimate how much electricity your home consumes on a typical day.

Explanation:

a. The total number of students (1,500) is manageable to access, so we can use the full set of data.
b. The number 1-ranked corporation in Fortune 500 for 10 years is a small, defined full set of entities, so we can use all of them.
c. There are only 5 specific pharmaceutical corporations, which is a complete, small group, so we can gather data on all of them.
d. Measuring electricity use every single day indefinitely is not feasible; a typical day's usage can be estimated with a subset of days.

Answer:

a. Population
b. Population
c. Population
d. Sample