Excel 2003 Data Analysis - Sampling

[watermt]

When performing a Sampling of numbers it's returning a duplication of one of
the numbers. I checked my list of numbers and the suspect number does not
appear more than once in my "sampled" column of numbers.

Is this a "bug" in the Sampling feature or could I be doing something wrong?

Mike

 

[Jacob Skaria]

Check out this 8 min video on Sampling..

If this post helps click Yes

 

[Glenn]

When performing a Sampling of numbers it's returning a duplication of one of
the numbers. I checked my list of numbers and the suspect number does not
appear more than once in my "sampled" column of numbers.

Is this a "bug" in the Sampling feature or could I be doing something wrong?

Mike

In a random sampling, the results are random, including the possibility of
returning the same data point more than once.

 

[watermt]

Way too complicated for my staff. We have a huge list of numbers (e.g.
12345, 67890, 45678) all a series of five digits. I put them in a column and
used the Sampling feature to retrieve 10 random numbers. It duplicated one
of the numbers in the list of 10, 42567 and 42567.

I guess I'm trying to find out why it would do this?

 

[watermt]

What would you recommend if I want to avoid returning the same data point?

 

[Glenn]

Assuming your list of numbers is in column A, put this in column B:

=RAND()

Sort both columns by column B and then use the first 10 numbers. Sort again to
get a new "sample".

 

[Shane Devenshire]

I believe this is know as sampling with replacement. The Data Analysis tool
does not allow you to control this option.

I think you may need to write VBA code to do this, although you can do a
fair job with formulas by using the =RAND() function.