In which of the following situations is it reasonable to use the entire population instead of a sample to collect data? (1 point)

Question

A scientist wants to determine the average age of the trees in a national forest.

A store manager wants to know the percentage of customers who prefer cold coffee over hot coffee.

A university dean wants to estimate the number of students who work and study at the same time.

A teacher wants to know his students' favorite holiday in all of his math classes.

Answer 1

It's reasonable to use the entire population instead of a sample in the following situation:

A teacher wants to know his students' favorite holiday in all of his math classes.

In this case, the population is defined and manageable (the teacher’s students in all math classes), making it feasible for the teacher to collect data from the entire group. For the other scenarios, it would be impractical or impossible to collect data from the entire population, either because it is too large or because it spans multiple locations or contexts (like the national forest or customer preferences across many stores).