Question

For the purpose of determining the value of its end-of-year inventory, a clothing store creates a list at the end of the year of every item currently in stock along with each item's wholesale price. Which of the following is the best description of the end-of-the-year activity?

a. An experiment, because the items are treatments and wholesale prices are responses.
b. An experiment, because the store does not know the total wholesale price of all the items.
c. A sample survey, because the store wants to estimate the value of all items for the entire year.
d. A sample survey, because the items currently in the store at the end of the year are a random sample of all items in the store for the entire year.
e. A census, because the wholesale prices of all items are listed.

Answer 1

e. A census, because the wholesale prices of all items are listed.

Explanation:

A census encompasses collecting data of an entire population as well evaluation of the characteristics of an entire population. Every item currently in store alongside their wholesale price was included in the survey here. None was excluded. So we cannot call the activity a sample survey. Since all items were counted, the best description to give to this activity is "a census".