The local genealogical society in Coles County, Illinois, has compiled records on all 55,914 gravestones in cemeteries in the county for the years 1825 to 1985. Historians plan to use these records to learn about African Americans in Coles County's history. They first choose an SRS of 395 records to check their accuracy by visiting the actual gravestones.

Explain how you would use your calculator to choose the SRS. Your description should be clear enough for a classmate to carry out your plan.

Step-by-step explanation:

There are 2 ways to proceed further.

Option A is with using the random number table.

Let us assume that each gravestone has a unique number between 1 and 55914. Choose a row at random from the table. Take the first number consisting of 5 digits, if the number corresponds with a number between 1 and 55914, then select the corresponding plot, otherwise move on to the next 5 digit-number.

Repeat until 395 gravestones have been selected.

Option B is with using any calculator with capability of generating random integer. Here for example consider any TI series programmable calculator.

Enter the following command into your calculator:

randInt (1,55914,395)

The first and second number are the lower and upper limits between which the values have to lie. The third number is the number of required selections.