The General Social Survey (GSS) is a survey of approximately 2000 adults conducted each year since 1972, for a total of more than 38,000 participants. During several years of the GSS, participants were asked how many close friends they have. The mean for this variable is 7.44 friends, with a standard deviation of 10.98. The median is 5.00 and the mode is 4.00.
Again, pretend that the GSS sample is the entire population of interest.
a. Imagine that you randomly selected one person from this population who reported that he had 18 close friends. Would you compare his score to a distribution of scores or a distribution of means? Explain your answer.
b. What is his z score? Based on this z score, what is his approximate percentile?
c. Does it make sense to calculate a percentile for this person? Explain your answer