Question

In late spring, a student began conducting an investigation about the flower preferences of bees. She counted the number of wildflowers in a small plot and created the following table.

Plant Species
Number of Plants
Dandelion
13
Indian paintbrush
8
Queen Anne’s lace
20
Thistle
29

She planned to observe the flowers for the next five days for an hour at the same time each afternoon. Then she would plot the data in a multiple line graph to compare the number of bees that visited each flower. Which statement best describes the data in this investigation?
The data would be more accurate if she carried out all the observations in one day so weather conditions would be constant.
The data would be more valid if she made the observations daily for two months.
The data she collected is inaccurate because the investigation is not repeatable.
The data she collected cannot be plotted in a line graph because it is qualitative

Answer 1

"The data would be more valid if she made the observations daily for two months."

Reason: longer, repeated observations increase sample size and account for day-to-day variation (weather, bee activity), so results better reflect true preferences. The other statements are incorrect: doing everything in one day reduces representativeness, the study is repeatable, and the counts are quantitative so can be graphed as lines.