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Discovery sampling is a tool used in a discovery auditing. The purpose of such an audit is to provide evidence that some (usually large) inventory of items complies with a defined set of criteria by inspecting (or measuring) a representative sample drawn from the inventory. If any of the items in the sample fail compliance (defective items), then the audit has discovered an impropriety, which often triggers some action. However finding defective items in a sample is an unusual event--auditors expect the inventory to be in compliance because they come to the audit with an innocent until proven guilty attitude. As part of their work product, the auditors must provide a confidence statement about compliance level of the inventory. Clearly the more items they inspect, the greater their confidence, but more inspection means more cost. Audit costs can be purely economic, but in some cases, the cost is political because more inspection means more intrusion, which communicates an attitude of distrust. Thus, auditors have every incentive to minimize the number of items in the sample. Indeed, in some cases the sample size can be specifically limited by a prior agreement or an ongoing policy. Statements of confidence about the results of a discovery sample generally use the method of confidence intervals. After finding no defectives in the sample, the auditors provide a range of values that bracket the number of defective items that could credibly be in the inventory. They also state a level of confidence for the interval, usually 90% or 95%. For example, the auditors might say: 'We believe that this inventory of 1,000 items contains no more than 10 defectives with a confidence of 95%'. Frequently clients ask their auditors questions such as: How many items do you need to measure to be 95% confident that there are no more than 10 defectives in the entire inventory. Sometimes when the auditors answer with big numbers like 300, their clients balk. They balk because a big sample size might bust the budget, or the number seems intuitively excessive.