Chapter 1: Getting Started Table of Contents Section 1.1 ........................................................................................................................ 1 Section 1.2 ........................................................................................................................ 2 Section 1.3 ........................................................................................................................ 3 Chapter Review Problems ................................................................................................... 4 Section 1.1 1. Individuals are people or objects included in the study, while a variable is a characteristic of the individual that is measured or observed. 2. Nominal data are always qualitative. 3. A parameter is a numerical measure that describes a population. A statistic is a numerical value that describes a sample. 4. If the population does not change, the values of the parameters will not change. Thus, for a fixed population,parameter values are constant. If we take three samples of the same size from a population, the values of the sample statistics will almost surely differ. 5. (a) These numerical assignments are at the nominal level. There is no apparent ordering in the responses. (b) These numerical assignments are at the ordinal level. There is an increasing relationship from worst to best levels of service. These assignments are not at the interval or ratio level. The distances between numerical responses are not meaningful. The ratios are also not meaningful. 6. Lucy’s observations do not apply to all adults; they apply only to her friends. Since the sample is not random, we cannot draw any conclusions about a larger group using this data. 7. (a) Meal ordered at fast-food restaurants. (b) Qualitative (c) All U.S. adult fast-food consumers. 8. (a) Miles per gallon. (b) Quantitative. (c) All new small hybrid cars. 9. (a) Nitrogen concentration (milligrams of nitrogen per liter of water). (b) Quantitative. (c) Nitrogen concentration (milligrams of nitrogen per liter of water) in the entire lake