Many discrete distributions are approximated by sampling. Here is the result of sampling 1000 households and asking how many languages the family speaks.
No of languages | Frequency |
1 | 530 |
2 | 380 |
3 | 60 |
4+ | 30 |
Total | 1000 |
(a) Divide each frequency by the total to obtain a table of relative frequencies.
(b) Does the resulting set of relative frequencies satisfy the properties of a probability distribution?
(c) Explain why this would or would not be a reasonable approximation to the actual probability distribution.
(a) Use a spreadsheet to construct a frequency table recording the sum of the throw of two dice. That is, use two random number generators to simulate the dice throws. Add two extra cells to calculate the mean and standard deviation.
(b) Use the recalc button to generate 10 values of the mean and standard deviation. Record these values and calculate their mean and standard deviation.