Question

A news reporter wants to estimate the percentage of registered voters who will vote for a particular candidate in an upcoming election. Which statement describes a method that will help him accurately estimate this percentage?
A.) He could contact every resident in the town, ask whether the resident will vote for the particular candidate, and then calculate the percentage of residents who say they will vote for the particular candidate.

B.)He could ask employees at the newspaper which candidate each will vote for, and then calculate the percentage who will vote for the particular candidate.

C.)He could take a random sample of registered voters, and then calculate the percentage of the sample who will vote for the particular candidate.

D.)He could ask his readers to respond to a survey that asks which candidate the reader will vote for and then calculate the percentage of people who say that they will vote for the particular candidate.

Answer 1

A news reporter wants to estimate the percentage of registered voters who will vote for a particular candidate in an upcoming election. Which statement describes a method that will help him accurately estimate this percentage?

Answer: In order to estimate the percentage of registered voters who will vote for a particular candidate in an upcoming election, a news reporter can randomly take a sample from the registered list of voters and based on their opinion a reporter can accurately estimate percentage of registered voters who will vote for a particular candidate in an upcoming election. Therefore, the option C will be correct.

Therefore the correct method is C) He could take a random sample of registered voters, and then calculate the percentage of the sample who will vote for the particular candidate.

The other options to gather the opinion about the percentage of the sample who will vote for the particular candidate are non probabilistic and there is every possibility of introduction of bias in the estimate. The only option which is probabilistic is option c because it involves random selection of respondents. Therefore the appropriate option is c.