Question

Determine whether the data set is a population or a sample. Explain your reasoning

The ages of three families of people in an apartment building housing ten families
Choose the correct answer below.
A. Population, because it is a collection of ages of all people in the building
B.Population, because it is a subset of all people living in the building
C. Sample, because it is a collection of ages of all people in the building but there are other apartment buildings.
D. Sample, because the collection of ages for three families of people is a subset of all people living in the building

Answer 1

The correct answer is option D, which identifies the data set as a sample because it includes only three families from a building of ten families, and a sample is a subset of the larger population.

Step-by-step explanation:

The correct answer is option D. The data set representing the ages of three families of people in an apartment building housing ten families is a sample, because it represents only a subset of all the people living in the building. When conducting research or surveys, if the entire population is too large to study completely, a sample is selected to represent the entire population.

For a sample to be effective, it should ideally be random and representative of the larger group. In this case, as the data set includes only three out of ten families, it cannot be considered the entire population of the apartment building. It is instead a smaller collection from which researchers can draw conclusions about the larger group