Two comments.

One, the stem-and-leaf plots were invented by the late statistician & topologist John Tukey and described in his book Exploratory Data Analysis.  If it's not part of the curriculum in NY state, then I find it moronic that this was put on the exam; if it is part of the curriculum, then it seems quite reasonable.

Second, having recently created a standardized test under contract, and learned what level of mathematical savvy many of the people in this business have, I strongly suspect that "each student has an equal chance of being picked" was added to "How many teams of 5 person can be chosen from a group of 8 students?" solely because the question writer actually thought it was relevant.

--Dan A.