topic badge

5.04 Misrepresentation of results

Interactive practice questions

Lachlan asks $120$120 Year 12 students at his school how much time they spend on homework per night. $78$78 Year 12 students say they do more than $3$3 hours. At a meeting of the student council Lachlan reports "$65%$65% of students at this school do too much homework.

Which one of the following explains why this is misleading?

The survey does not represent the population of the school.

A

The question should have been multiple choice.

B

The question was biased.

C

The sample size was too small.

D
Easy
< 1min

A newspaper states: "Oil prices have risen by $33%$33% over the last two years."

In the article it states that in 2010 the oil prices increased by $10%$10% and in 2011 the oil price increased by $23%$23%.

Easy
< 1min

In the polls for an upcoming election, various polls are analysed to see who is likely to win the election.

Most polls put Kodos ahead of Kang by between $10%$10% and $12%$12%.

A few polls have Kang ahead of Kodos by a few percentage points.

Medium
< 1min

In NSW, data collected on assaults occurring in hospitals showed that from 2006 to 2011 the number of assaults increased, from 2011 to 2014 the number of assaults remained constant and in 2015 there was a drop in the number of assaults.

Based on this a newspaper reported “Assaults in hospitals have risen dramatically from 2006 to 2015”.

Hard
1min
Sign up to access Practice Questions
Get full access to our content with a Mathspace account

Outcomes

ACMEM136

investigate the possible misrepresentation of the results of a survey due to misunderstanding the procedure, or misunderstanding the reliability of generalising the survey findings to the entire population

ACMEM137

investigate errors and misrepresentation in surveys, including examples of media misrepresentations of surveys

What is Mathspace

About Mathspace