Maths- Stats and mechanics Y1

What is meant by a population?

A whole set of items that are of interest

What is meant by a census

a census observes or measures every member of a population

What is meant by a sample

a selection of observations taken from the population

What is meant by a sampling unit

an individual unit of a population

What is meant by a sampling frame

a (numbered) list of the sampling units

State one advantage of taking a census

it should give a completely accurate result

State the disadvantages of taking a census

• time consuming and expensive

• cannot be used when the testing process destroys the item

• hard to process large data sets

State 2 advantages of taking a sample

• less time consuming and expensive

• less data to process

State a disadvantage of taking a sample

the data may not be representative of the population

Typical answer for how to make the results of a sample more accurate

Increase the number of _____ being sampled