The 2014 General Social Survey asked respondents how many sex partners they had in the previous 12 months. Software reports

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Variable N Mean StDev SE Mean 95.0% CI partners 2296 0.996 0.918 0.0192 (0.96, 1.03)

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(a) Interpret the confidence interval reported.

(b) Based on these results, explain why the distribution was probably skewed to the right. Explain why the skew need not cause a problem with the validity of the confidence interval, unless there are extreme outliers.

(c) Upon closer look at the data file, we see that of the 8 available responses (0, 1, 2, · · · · · · , 7), 5 stands for 5–10 partners, 6 stands for 11–20 partners, and 7 stands for 21–100 partners. If we instead had the actual numbers of partners, would the mean and standard deviation be larger, or smaller? Why? What would the impact be on the confidence interval?