For a class project, you are asked to conduct a survey of students at your school. You decide to find out which of the following things students at your school are most afraid of:

Describe how you would go about conducting your survey. Be sure to include the following things in your survey:

This problem would require a short-answer response which is worth 2 points. In order to receive both points you need to be sure to have complete and specific responses to the two questions being asked of you in the problem.

A 2 point response would list at least one clear question or statement that would determine which of the three listed students are most afraid of, and gives an acceptable method for selecting a random sample. Surveys, or whichever method you would choose, should be limited to students at school, but not the whole school.

A possible 2 point response could look like this:

Rank these in order according to what you are most to least afraid of: (1 point) Public Speaking High Places Snakes I would find a random sample by surveying every third person in the cafeteria at lunch. (1 point)

Another possible 2 point response might look like this:

The question I would use are "What are you most afraid of ... public speaking, high places, or snakes?" (1 point) I would also ask for their age and gender. I would take 50 people from each grade and have 25 females and males our of the 50. (1 point)

This answer from a student includes a correct question and an acceptable method to select a random survey. The method describes the number of students that will be surveyed and realizes that the survey must include all grades, both boys and girls. This response is correct and complete earning 2 points.

Look at this student response and see if you can see why this one would only receive 1 point. Read carefully.

I would use the question, What are you most afraid of? To select a random sample I would choose an equal number of boys and girls and I would pick an equal number of students per grade level. Then I would walk around asking people what they thought and not let anyone else see my results so they could not be persuaded in any way.

Can you see why only 1 point would be awarded for this response?

The student method of selecting a random sample works fine, which is where the 1 point is awarded. For the second point remember they needed to have one clear question or statement that would determine which of the three listed students were the most afraid of. Notice that this response includes an incomplete question. The categories are not listed as the options to choose from. Since the question is left totally open-ended it can not be accepted for a point.