Ask yourself: Is it reasonable to use information from this one group of 150 students to make claims about all students at the school or all teenagers in the country?

The survey asked whether students regularly drank energy drinks before practice or games. Did the survey measure athletic performance or compare it between different groups in a controlled way?

Since 72% of the surveyed students answered "Yes," think about what that says about how many in that group drink energy drinks compared to half of them.

In Desmos, type 0.72*150 and press Enter. The output tells you how many of the 150 surveyed sports-team students reported regularly drinking energy drinks.

Type 150/2 in Desmos and compare this value to the result of 0.72*150. Notice that the number of "Yes" responses is greater than half of 150, which corresponds to interpreting the percentage as a majority of the surveyed group.

Carefully read the description of the sample: the teacher surveyed 150 students who were members of their school's sports teams. That means:

• The data come only from students on sports teams.
• The survey does not include non-athlete students or teenagers from other schools or areas.

Each of these 150 students was asked whether they regularly drank energy drinks before practice or games, and 72% answered "Yes."

• Converting 72% to a decimal gives $0.72$.
• If you multiply $0.72 \times 150$, you get the number of surveyed students who said "Yes."
• Since 72% is greater than 50%, more than half of the surveyed sports-team students reported regularly drinking energy drinks.

On SAT statistics questions, you can only generalize to groups similar to the sample.

• Because only sports-team students at one school were surveyed, the results cannot support statements about:
  • All high school students at the school (this would include many students who were not surveyed).
  • All teenagers in the country (this is far beyond the surveyed group).
• Also, the question only asked what students do, not how well they perform, so it tells you nothing about whether energy drinks improve performance.

Now check each choice:

• (A) talks about most high school students at the school, which goes beyond the sports-team group that was actually surveyed.
• (C) talks about all teenagers in the country, which is an even bigger group and clearly not justified by one school's survey.
• (D) claims that energy drinks improve athletic performance, but the survey did not test performance at all, so this is a causal claim that is unsupported.

The only option that stays within the surveyed group and simply reflects that a majority of them said "Yes" is:

B) Most students who participate on the school's sports teams drink energy drinks.