FREE SAT Data Analysis & Statistics Questions and Answers 3

Question 1

A study finds that students who eat breakfast have higher test scores than those who don't. Which design would BEST establish that eating breakfast CAUSES higher test scores?

Accepted Answer

A randomized controlled experiment where students are randomly assigned to breakfast or no-breakfast conditions

Answer

Only a randomized controlled experiment — where participants are randomly assigned to conditions — can establish causation, because randomization controls for confounding variables that may explain the correlation.

Question 2

A survey of 500 adults asks: 'Do you agree that our community should invest more in parks?' 450 (90%) say yes. What is a critical limitation of this data for making policy recommendations?

Accepted Answer

The question wording is leading — 'agree' bias and positive framing likely inflated the 'yes' response

Answer

The question is leading — 'Do you agree that...' presupposes agreement is the natural response. Asking 'Should the community invest more in parks?' or providing balanced pros/cons would yield more valid data.

Question 3

Which of the following is MOST likely an example of voluntary response bias in a survey?

Accepted Answer

An online poll on a news website where any visitor can choose to respond

Answer

Online polls where anyone can choose to respond (voluntary response) typically attract people with strong opinions — especially those who feel strongly opposed or supportive — producing biased, non-representative results.

Question 4

A study reports that a new drug reduces blood pressure by an average of 8 mmHg in the treatment group, compared to 2 mmHg in the placebo group. The p-value is 0.03. What does this mean?

Accepted Answer

If the drug had no effect, there would be only a 3% chance of observing a difference this large by random chance — suggesting the result is statistically significant

Answer

A p-value of 0.03 means that if there were truly no treatment effect, random variation would produce this large a difference only 3% of the time — this is below the conventional 5% threshold, so the result is considered statistically significant.

Question 5

A school district's average SAT score is 1,050. Looking at individual school averages, only 3 of 20 schools have averages above 1,050. What might explain this apparent paradox?

Accepted Answer

Simpson's Paradox or the influence of one or more schools with very large student populations and high scores

Answer

When a few schools with large student populations have very high scores, they can pull the district MEAN above most schools' averages — because the district mean weights schools by student count, not equally by school.

Bluebook SAT Practice Test Practice Test

Bluebook SAT Practice Test Practice Test

FREE SAT Data Analysis & Statistics Questions and Answers 3