In this lesson, you used simulations to generate random samples of the same size from a population with known characteristics. With several random samples from the same population, you observed that a random sample is typically representative of the population from which it was selected.

Random samples are useful in predicting election results or describing how particular groups of people voted in an election.

Random samples are useful in describing characteristics or beliefs of a large population. If the population is sufficiently large, like the population of Texas, it is too expensive and takes too much time to ask every Texan what they think about a particular issue. Instead, you can use a random sample, which is representative of all Texans, and make generalizations and predictions from the sample.