Consider a survey on an issue in which the American population is thought to be approximately evenly divided.

a. How many people would we need to survey for us to have a 99 percent chance of obtaining a value that differs from the true percentage by no more than 1 percentage point?

b. After taking our survey using an appropriately chosen representative sample and with the appropriate numbers obtained from part

a, we find that 40 percent of the sample is positive about the issue under consideration. Does this mean that we can be 99 percent certain that the true proportion of the whole of the American population who are positive about this issue is between 39 and 41 percent? Discuss.

 P-963