Randomly select 100 purchases from your checkbook or 100 credit card purchases that you have made in the past year. Do not mix checks and credit card purchases; pick one or the other for this study.
Would you expect the cents portion of the checks to be evenly represented? Explain why or why not before collecting your sample.
Before collecting the sample, it is important to understand the nature of how the cents portion of checks or credit card purchases is determined. In most cases, the cents portion of a purchase is randomly determined, especially with modern payment systems that round to the nearest cent.
Therefore, assuming that your checkbook or credit card transactions were made over a diverse range of transactions, it is reasonable to expect the cents portion of the checks or credit card purchases to be evenly represented.
To further explain, imagine that you have made purchases ranging from $10.01 to $10.99 in the past year. Each cent value between 01 and 99 is equally likely to occur. Therefore, if you randomly select 100 purchases from these transactions, it is expected that the cents portion would be evenly distributed across the range of 01 to 99.
However, it is important to note that if there are any specific patterns or biases in your purchases, such as frequently making purchases in certain price ranges, it could potentially impact the even representation of the cents portion. It's important to consider these factors before drawing conclusions.