Selected parameters for a negatively-skewed and a normally distributed normative distribution were estimated in a post-mortem item-examinee sampling investigation. Manipulated systematically were number of subtests, number of items per subtest, and number of examinees responding to each subtest. Each item-examinee sampling procedure was replicated five times. Defining one observation as the score received by one examinee on one item, the results indicate that the mean of a normative distribution is easily and efficiently estimated with a relatively small number of observations; the variance, to the contrary is a more difficult parameter to approximate and requires a larger number of observations to obtain a reasonable efficient estimate. The results of this investigation support the conclusion that, in estimating parameters by item-examinee sampling, the variable of importance is not the item-examinee sampling procedure but is instead the number of observations obtained by that procedure. (Author)