Simulations

We have studied simulations over the past few days - once in the context of goldfish and once in the context of trying to recall as many 3-letter words as possible within a 1-minute time period. Simulations are repeated experiments. We perform simulations to gain insight on what the population distribution looks like. The more simulations we perform, the less variability we have, and the more the sample distribution looks like the population distribution.

When describing a simulation, we always:
1. State the model
2. Define what one trial is, and mention if there is a stopping rule.  Note that the AP exam requires at least 100 trials for a simulation to be large enough
3.  State what is being recorded (I.e. what is the random variable?)
4.  Perform the simulation and collect results
5.  Analyze the results