1. Name some mistakes people make in taking opinion polls.
2. What are the three important questions to ask yourself about opinion-poll results?
3. Are the following polls accurate or misleading? Identify the good and bad polling techniques.
a. "Eighty-nine percent of Americans like to eat hamburgers."- poll taken of 300 people outside McDonald's at lunchtime
b. "Seventy-five percent of commuters are too busy to answer poll questions." - poll taken of 500 people in front of the train station during rush hour
c. "Only two percent of Americans know whom Britney Spears married." - poll taken of 65 residents at the Shady Rest Retirement Home
d. "Only 33 percent of those visiting the public library come to borrow books." - poll taken of 1,000 people using the Philadelphia Free Library over a period of three weeks, at different times of day