Question

Suppose you have the job of assigning the proper number of House of Representatives seats for various states. To do that, you must know the _______ in that state.

a. number of counties
b. population
c. apportionment
d. number of districts

Answer 1

The number of seats in the House of Representatives depends on the population, but not directly: it depends on the population as compared to the other states. Based on the population, the number is being apportioned (aloted), roughly proportionally to the population.

So b.population would be good for a rough estimate, but the actual answer is c.