Charles wants to find out if the students in foreign language classes spend more time in class speaking in English or in the foreign language they are studying. Charles first gets class lists of all students taking foreign language classes. He then chooses 10 students from each different language class to survey. Which best explains why the sample he chose may not be a representative sample?
Answer
A
The way the sample was chosen does not sample students from each different language class.
B
The sample size is not large enough to represent the population.
C
The sample was not chosen at random.
D
The way the sample was chosen may overrepresent or underrepresent students taking certain language classes.
Explanation
Choosing exactly 10 students from every language class gives each class the same number of places in the sample, even if some classes have many more students than others. As a result, students in smaller classes could be overrepresented and students in larger classes underrepresented compared with the full population. This is why the sample may not be representative.
AI-written and checked against the verified answer.