The average American has become accustomed to eating away from home, especially at fast-food restaurants. Partly as a result of this fast-food habit, the per-capita consumption of cheese (the main ingredient in pizza) and nondiet soft drinks has risen dramatically from a decade ago. A study in American Demographics reports that the average American consumes 25.7 pounds of cheese and drinks 40 gallons (or approximately 645 8-ounce servings) of nondiet soft drinks per year. To test the accuracy of these reported averages, a random sample of 40 consumers is selected, and these summary statistics are recorded:

Use your knowledge of statistical estimation to estimate the average per-capita annual consumption for these two products. Does this sample cause you to support or to question the accuracy of the reported averages? Explain.

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Cheese (Ib/yr) Soft Drinks (gal/yr) Sample Mean Sample Standard Deviation 28.1 3.8 39.2 4.5