Describe or suggest sampling method

A question is this sub-type if and only if it asks the student to describe how to implement a valid sampling method, suggest an appropriate sampling technique for a given context, or identify suitable sampling frames/units without critiquing a pre-existing flawed method.

7 questions · Easy -1.3

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CAIE S1 2012 June Q5
10 marks Moderate -0.8
5 Suzanne has 20 pairs of shoes, some of which have designer labels. She has 6 pairs of high-heeled shoes, of which 2 pairs have designer labels. She has 4 pairs of low-heeled shoes, of which 1 pair has designer labels. The rest of her shoes are pairs of sports shoes. Suzanne has 8 pairs of shoes with designer labels in total.
  1. Copy and complete the table below to show the number of pairs in each category.
    Designer labelsNo designer labelsTotal
    High-heeled shoes
    Low-heeled shoes
    Sports shoes
    Total20
    Suzanne chooses 1 pair of shoes at random to wear.
  2. Find the probability that she wears the pair of low-heeled shoes with designer labels.
  3. Find the probability that she wears a pair of sports shoes.
  4. Find the probability that she wears a pair of high-heeled shoes, given that she wears a pair of shoes with designer labels.
  5. State with a reason whether the events 'Suzanne wears a pair of shoes with designer labels' and 'Suzanne wears a pair of sports shoes' are independent. Suzanne chooses 1 pair of shoes at random each day.
  6. Find the probability that Suzanne wears a pair of shoes with designer labels on at most 4 days out of the next 7 days.
CAIE S2 2019 June Q6
10 marks Moderate -0.8
6 Ramesh plans to carry out a survey in order to find out what adults in his town think about local sports facilities. He chooses a random sample from the adult members of a tennis club and gives each of them a questionnaire.
  1. Give a reason why this will not result in Ramesh having a random sample of adults who live in the town.
  2. Describe briefly a valid method that Ramesh could use to choose a random sample of adults in the town.
    Ramesh now uses a valid method to choose a random sample of 350 adults from the town. He finds that 47 adults think that the local sports facilities are good.
  3. Calculate an approximate \(90 \%\) confidence interval for the proportion of all adults in the town who think that the local sports facilities are good.
  4. Ramesh calculates a confidence interval whose width is 1.25 times the width of this \(90 \%\) confidence interval. Ramesh's new interval is an \(x \%\) confidence interval. Find the value of \(x\).
    If you use the following lined page to complete the answer(s) to any question(s), the question number(s) must be clearly shown.
Edexcel AS Paper 2 2021 November Q3
4 marks Easy -1.8
  1. Helen is studying one of the qualitative variables from the large data set for Heathrow from 2015.
She started with the data from 3rd May and then took every 10th reading.
There were only 3 different outcomes with the following frequencies
Outcome\(A\)\(B\)\(C\)
Frequency1621
  1. State the sampling technique Helen used.
  2. From your knowledge of the large data set
    1. suggest which variable was being studied,
    2. state the name of outcome \(A\). George is also studying the same variable from the large data set for Heathrow from 2015. He started with the data from 5th May and then took every 10th reading and obtained the following
      Outcome\(A\)\(B\)\(C\)
      Frequency1611
      Helen and George decided they should examine all of the data for this variable for Heathrow from 2015 and obtained the following
      Outcome\(A\)\(B\)\(C\)
      Frequency155263
  3. State what inference Helen and George could reliably make from their original samples about the outcomes of this variable at Heathrow, for the period covered by the large data set in 2015.
OCR MEI Paper 2 2021 November Q10
9 marks Moderate -0.8
10 Ben has an interest in birdwatching. For many years he has identified, at the start of the year, 32 days on which he will spend an hour counting the number of birds he sees in his garden. He divides the year into four using the Meteorological Office definition of seasons. Each year he uses stratified sampling to identify the 32 days on which he will count the birds in his garden, drawn equally from the four seasons. Ben's data for 2019 are shown in the stem and leaf diagram in Fig. 10.1. \begin{table}[h]
035999
100112456789
20146789
30023
4036
51
60
\captionsetup{labelformat=empty} \caption{Fig. 10.1}
\end{table}
  1. Suggest a reason why Ben chose to use stratified sampling instead of simple random sampling.
  2. Describe the shape of the distribution.
  3. Explain why the mode is not a useful measure of central tendency in this case.
  4. For Ben's sample, determine
    Ben found a boxplot for the sample of size 32 he collected using stratified sampling in 2015. The boxplot is shown in Fig. 10.2. \begin{figure}[h]
    \includegraphics[alt={},max width=\textwidth]{c9d14a4d-a1c8-42ad-9c0b-42cef6b3612f-06_483_1163_1982_242} \captionsetup{labelformat=empty} \caption{Fig. 10.2}
    \end{figure} In 2016 Ben replaced his hedge with a garden fence.
    Ben now believes that
    Jane says she can tell that the data for 2015 is definitely uniformly distributed by looking at the boxplot.
  5. Explain why Jane is wrong.
Edexcel S3 2017 June Q1
6 marks Easy -1.3
  1. A company director decides to survey staff about changes to the company calendar. The company has staff in 4 different job roles
72 managers, 108 drivers, 180 administrators and 360 warehouse staff.
The director decides to take a stratified sample.
  1. Write down one advantage of using a stratified sample rather than a simple random sample for this survey.
  2. Find the number of staff in each job role that will be included in a stratified sample of 40 staff.
  3. Describe how to choose managers for the stratified sample.
Edexcel S2 Q1
4 marks Easy -1.8
  1. A random sample is to be taken from the A-level results obtained by the final-year students in a Sixth Form College. Suggest
    1. suitable sampling units,
    2. a suitable sampling frame.
    3. Would it be advisable simply to use the results of all those doing A-level Maths?
    Explain your answer.
Edexcel S2 Specimen Q1
4 marks Easy -1.8
A school held a disco for years 9, 10 and 11 which was attended by 500 pupils. The pupils were registered as they entered the disco. The disco organisers were keen to assess the success of the event. They designed a questionnaire to obtain information from those who attended.
  1. State one advantage and one disadvantage of using a sample survey rather than a census. [2]
  2. Suggest a suitable sampling frame. [1]
  3. Identify the sampling units. [1]