Ben believes that most of the automobiles in his neighborhood are SUVs. He does a house-to-house survey of parked cars. He surve
ys 45 cars and only 8 of the cars he finds are SUVs. Yet fully 50% of the town’s automobiles are SUVs. What is the MOST LIKELY explanation for these two facts? A) Ben’s sample is too small to be representative of the entire town. B) SUVs are sometimes hard to distinguish from non-SUVs and Ben made errors. C) Most of the SUVs were on the road, and less popular models were left at home. D) Ben only looked at parked cars instead of asking residents what kind of car they drive.
All of the explanations are possible, but surveys need to be done in a way which results in a representative sample. Ben’s sample was not representative of the entire town.
He only asked in his neighborhood not in his whole town. C just doesn’t make sense. B is highly unlikely mathematically speaking, and D was kind of illogical. I thought of picking D, but comparing the two, A was the better answer.
