Every day in the summer months a supermarket receives a shipment of peaches. The supermarket's quality inspector arranges to have one box randomly selected from each shipment for which the number of "spoiled" peaches (out of 48 peaches in the box), which cannot be put out on the supermarket shelves, is recorded. DS 6.1.5 shows the data set obtained after 55 days.
(a) Define the population from which the sample is taken. Do you think that it is a representative sample?
(b) Are there any other factors that should be taken into account in interpreting the data set? Are there any issues pertaining to the way in which the sample has been collected that you would want to investigate before interpreting the data set?