A meadow has an area of 2,500 square meters. An ecologist... | SAT Inference from sample statistics and margin of error Question, Answer Explained

Question bank / Inference from sample statistics and margin of error

Math · Problem-Solving and Data AnalysisEasy

A meadow has an area of $2{,}500$ square meters. An ecologist randomly selected $40$ plots in the meadow, each $1$ square meter in area, and found a mean of $13.5$ wildflowers per plot. Based on this sample, what is the best estimate of the total number of wildflowers in the meadow?

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Answer: 33750

The sample suggests about $13.5$ wildflowers per square meter. The meadow has $2{,}500$ square meters, so the estimate is $13.5 \times 2{,}500 = 33{,}750$ wildflowers.

Multiplying $13.5$ by $40$ gives $540$ , which estimates only the wildflowers in the sampled plots, not in the whole meadow.

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