APCSP Simulation Models 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A climate scientist uses a simulation to predict temperatures over 100 years. Which factor most directly affects the simulation's accuracy?
- The programming language used to code the simulation
- The quality and completeness of the real-world data used as inputs (Correct answer)
- The speed of the computer running the simulation
- The number of scientists reviewing the results
Correct answer: The quality and completeness of the real-world data used as inputs
Simulation accuracy depends on how well the input data and assumptions reflect real-world conditions.
Question 2: In a traffic simulation, cars follow simplified rules rather than mimicking every driver behavior. This is an example of:
- A bug in the simulation
- Abstraction used to make the simulation manageable (Correct answer)
- Data bias introduced by the programmer
- Parallel computing applied to modeling
Correct answer: Abstraction used to make the simulation manageable
Simplifying complex behaviors into rules is abstraction, which makes simulations feasible to build and run.
Question 3: A simulation produces different results each time it runs because it uses randomly generated inputs. This type of simulation is called:
- Deterministic
- Iterative
- Stochastic (Correct answer)
- Sequential
Correct answer: Stochastic
A stochastic simulation incorporates randomness, producing different outputs on each run.
Question 4: Why might a scientist run the same simulation hundreds of times with different random seeds?
- To find the fastest possible outcome
- To collect a range of outcomes and analyze the distribution of results (Correct answer)
- To ensure the simulation code has no bugs
- To reduce the file size of the output data
Correct answer: To collect a range of outcomes and analyze the distribution of results
Running many trials with different random seeds gives a statistical distribution of outcomes rather than a single result.
Question 5: A flight simulator accurately models aerodynamics but ignores weather turbulence. Which statement best describes this simulator?
- It is completely invalid because it omits turbulence
- It models some real-world aspects while abstracting away others (Correct answer)
- It is a deterministic simulation because it has no randomness
- It cannot be used to train pilots because of the omission
Correct answer: It models some real-world aspects while abstracting away others
Simulations always involve trade-offs, modeling some aspects of reality while omitting or simplifying others.
Question 6: Which of the following is a LIMITATION of using simulations instead of real-world experiments?
- Simulations always take longer to run than real experiments
- Simulations can only model physical phenomena, not social ones
- Simulation results depend on the accuracy of the underlying model and assumptions (Correct answer)
- Simulations cannot use mathematical equations
Correct answer: Simulation results depend on the accuracy of the underlying model and assumptions
If the model's assumptions are flawed or incomplete, simulation results may not reflect real-world behavior accurately.
Question 7: A student simulates rolling two dice 10,000 times to estimate the probability of rolling a sum of 7. Why is a large number of trials important?
- More trials make the program run faster
- A larger sample size produces results closer to the true theoretical probability (Correct answer)
- Fewer trials would cause the program to crash
- More trials eliminate all randomness from the simulation
Correct answer: A larger sample size produces results closer to the true theoretical probability
By the law of large numbers, increasing the number of trials makes the experimental probability converge toward the theoretical probability.
APCSP Simulation Models 2
A climate scientist uses a simulation to predict temperatures over 100 years.
Which factor most directly affects the simulation's accuracy?