Question from-a
From a population of people, were chosen at random and surveyed about a proposed piece of legislation. Based on the survey, it is estimated that of people in the population support the legislation, with an associated margin of error of . Based on these results, which of the following is a plausible value for the total number of people in the population who support the proposed legislation?
From a population of 50,000 people, 1,000 were chosen at random and surveyed about a proposed
Hard-difficulty · SAT Math · Inference from Samples & Margin of Error — Margin of error interpretation. Read the question above, select your answer, and check the full explanation below to understand exactly why the correct choice works.
Answer explanation
Choice C is correct. It’s given that an estimated of people in the population support the legislation, with an associated margin of error of . Subtracting and adding the margin of error from the estimate gives an interval of plausible values for the true percentage of people in the population who support the legislation. Therefore, it’s plausible that between and of people in this population support the legislation. The corresponding numbers of people represented by these percentages in the population can be calculated by multiplying the total population, , by and by , which gives and , respectively. It follows that any value in the interval to is a plausible value for the total number of people in the population who support the proposed legislation. Of the choices given, only is in this interval.
Choice A is incorrect. This is the number of people in the sample, rather than in the population, who support the legislation.
Choice B is incorrect. This is the number of people in the sample who do not support the legislation.
Choice D is incorrect. This is a plausible value for the total number of people in the population who do not support the proposed legislation.
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