Statistics for Business: Decision Making and Analysis, 3rd Edition

A Sampling Experiment

This experiment works well in a class, with some friends, or—if you really like chocolate—all by yourself. It requires two packages of milk chocolate M&M’s^® if you are doing it alone, or one for each person for groups of two or more. We use milk chocolate M&M’s, but you can use any variety. Make sure that both bags are the same variety. You should also visit the company Web site to see if it shows the underlying proportions of colors for your variety; the distribution of colors varies among different types. We used packages labelled 1.69 ounces; these have about 60 pieces.

Milk chocolate M&M’s currently come in six colors: brown, yellow, red, blue, orange, and green. The colors are not likely equal. Brown, once the only ...