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This thread is inspired by another: view original post
Edited by Mister Sparkles :
6/7/2013 1:16:46 PM
18
I had a maths exam yesterday; did I get this question right?
Patrick and Matilda are trying to generate a random list of names of people in their year.
Matilda wrote the names on pieces of paper and pulled ten of them from a hat.
Patrick picked the first ten names on an alphabetical register.
A) They both generated a random sample.
B) Only Matilda generated a random sample.
C) Only Patrick generated a random sample.
D) Neither generated a random sample.
I chose D.
English
#Offtopic
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B I guess.
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B. Source: knowledge of Statistics.
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If you're choosing with full discrimination, the answer is D because nothing can ever be truly random. If you're not being as technical, then B is the answer.
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1 ReplyGod I hate that word. "Maths." It just sounds...incorrect.
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It's B... Picking alphabetically does not give each name the same probability of being picked.... Drawing 10 randomly from a hat does.
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2 RepliesGood grief, is this what passes for a British final-year high school mathematics course?
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Its A.
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It's A.
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1 ReplyHow did you remember this question verbatim?
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Edited by Crawley: 6/7/2013 3:56:28 PMYou are all wrong. The answer is A. Matilda's sample was random because it generates unpredictable results. Human preference and paper being on top of one another is a nonissue because which papers were on top was random to begin with, especially if she shook the hat, and she could have pushed them aside or not. Patrick also generated a random sample because hand picking ten names from a list with no regard for what those names are or where they are is random. Imagine if a magician held out a deck of cards and said choose a random card. Would choosing the first card not be random? What if he said pick ten random cards? Would grabbing the first ten not be random regardless if the cards were shuffled or in order? What if the names were out of order and he chose the first ten names alphabetically anyway? That would be a random choice. If you are presented with a list of 1000 names in alphabetical order and are told to randomly choose ten of them, it would be perfectly random to choose the first ten. If you presented 100 people each with the same list of 1000 alphabetical names and asked each of them to randomly choose ten names, it would, like Matilda's method, generate unpredictable results, even if one person chose only the first ten names.
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2 RepliesEdited by Snake Plissken: 6/7/2013 3:47:58 PMD is correct, strictly speaking, but for the purposes of the exam (if you are in school), they might have wanted B.
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B is the correct answer because she wrote every name of her class on a piece of paper and then picked ten from a hat at [b]random[/b]. It's just like a random generator on a computer, she just did it the really hard way.
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10 RepliesAll that's needed for random is to not be able to know the outcome ahead of time. The correct answer is B, because her method cannot be predicted. The guys method would produce the same results every time.
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Matildas wasn't exactly random as the names where hand picked
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15 RepliesIf you get really technical it's D. But if not then probably B. It's kind of like flipping a coin. We say it's a 50/50 chance but it's probably a 50,00...01/49,99...99 chance. One thing is for sure though: Patrick's sample is not random!
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2 RepliesEdited by burritosenior: 6/7/2013 2:56:42 PMI dunno. What grade are you? I'd say it depends on how deep you want to go into what qualifies as 'random.' I mean, neither are truly 'random,' but you could say one is more random than the other. You could say picking names from a hat is random, but what if the picker knows where it is? Math is my worst subject, and puzzles aren't much better. But eh.
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I'm thinking A or B.
