Question 697531: Classify the following as discrete or continuous random variables.
(A) The number of business majors at South University
(B) The time it takes to complete this assignment
(C) The blood pressures of patients admitted to a hospital in one day
(D) The number of people who play the state lottery each day
Answer by Simnepi(216)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Discrete variables are ones that can only have certain values i.e.think about people, you can have any whole number(integer) of people but you cannot have 3.2 people.
Continuous variables are ones that are measured on a sliding scale and can take (almost) any value, i.e. think about temperatures, you can have temperatures of 20degrees, 174.55degrees or if you have a very accurate thermometer you could measure to any number of decimal places.
A is a discrete variable as you can only have integer values of people.
B is continuous as time can be measured in minutes, seconds and fractions of seconds.
C is also continuous as you can measure blood pressure on a sliding scale.
D is a discrete variable (see explanation for A above)
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