question

Since the _____, governmental decision makers have relied heavily on public opinion polls.

answer

1930s

question

Who is considered the founder of modern-day polling?

answer

George Gallup

question

Unscientific surveys used to gauge public opinion on a variety of issues are known as what?

answer

straw polls

question

Since 1952, researchers at the University of Michigan have conducted surveys to assess the political attitudes and behavior of the American electorate. By what name is this research known?

answer

National Election Studies

question

Although campaign organizations generally deny conduction push polls, research indicates that push polls have indeed targeted political candidates. How many candidates have been targeted by this type of polling?

answer

more than three-quarters

question

When were tracking polls introduced?

answer

1992

question

Researchers refer to the unintended influence of the questioner on respondents during in-person interviews as what?

answer

interviewee bias

question

Polls may be inaccurate for a number of reasons. Which of the following is one of these reasons?

answer

Polls are unable to measure the intensity of feelings about issues

question

The _____ is a measure of accuracy of a public opinion poll

answer

margin of error

question

What are \"feeling thermometer\" questions?

answer

questions that ask respondents how they feel about a particular issue by using a 0-100 scale

question

What do Americans often have difficulty forming opinions about?

answer

policies that do not affect them personally

question

Of the following, which is considered a demographic characteristic?

answer

gender

question

In what are many American ideals, including hard work and personal responsibility, rooted?

answer

our nation's Protestant heritage

question

When is a child's peer group most politically influential?

answer

when the child enters middle school or high school

question

Which amendment removed the election of US senators from the hands of state legislators and placed it in the hands of citizens?

answer

the 17th Amendment

question

\"All government rests on public opinion.\" Where is this sentiment expressed?

answer

in The Federalist Papers

question

What reason does Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, give to explain why public opinion polls have become critical players in national and international politics over the last three decades?

answer

the rise in the number of public opinion polls

question

Why is Walter Lippmann credited with spurring the growth of public opinion polling?

answer

Lippmann wrote a book in which he observed that research on public opinion was far too limited, especially in light of it importance

question

George Gallup undoubtedly had a vested interest in fostering reliance on public opinion polls. Why?

answer

he was a pollster

question

Of the following statements about the 1936 Literary Digest poll, which predicted Roosevelt's defeat for reelection, which is true?

answer

the poll oversampled the upper middle class and the wealthy

question

In the context of public opinion polls, what is self-selection?

answer

a reference to the highly motivated respondents who decide for themselves whether or not to participate in surveys

question

What is the purpose of a \"name recognition survey\"?

answer

to discover how many people have heard of a potential candidate for office

question

What does the Pew Global Attitudes Survey assess?

answer

the attitudes toward global powers held by citizens in a sample of countries

question

Why do reputable polling firms eschew push poll tactics?

answer

the intent of a push poll is to give respondents some negative or even untruthful information about a candidate's opponent

question

How does the textbook answer this question: why are traditional telephone polls becoming increasingly difficult to conduct?

answer

many people do not have landlines

question

How are exit polls conducted?

answer

in person

question

Which of the following statements about the shortcomings of polling is true?

answer

polls sometimes fail to measure intensity of feeling

question

Two types of errors are common to polls. What are they?

answer

margin of error and sampling error

question

Of the following public opinion poll topics, which is more likely than the others to be subject to a screening procedure?

answer

the federal budget

question

How do political scientists define political socialization?

answer

as the process through which individuals acquire their political beliefs and values

question

Refer to \"How Do Demographic Characteristics Affect Public Opinion?\" and indicate which is true about how age impacts views on whether or not the government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep.

answer

Citizens between thirty and forty-nine years old fell the most strongly that every citizen has enough to eat and a place to sleep when compared to other age groups

question

At what age do parents exercise the greatest influence on the political socialization of their children?

answer

from birth to age 5

question

Gaps in the way that citizens view government, political leaders, and public policies may be the result of gender, race, age, party, and religion, which are collectively known as what?

answer

demographic characteristics

question

Researchers have found that women are _____ similarly qualified men to think about running for office

answer

more reluctant than

question

Why has the public become more of a critical player in national and international politics in the past three decades?

answer

because the number of polls regularly conducted and reported on is rising

question

Which of the following statements best describes the interaction between public opinion and public policy in the US?

answer

the public's views, registered through public opinion polls, can affect policy

question

In 1787, John Jay wrote glowingly of the sameness of the American people. In Federalist No. 2, he wrote that we are \"one united people-- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in manners and customs.\" Considering the sentiments expressed therein, which of these statements is Jay more likely to agree with?

answer

He would likely agree that reliance on public opinion polls is unnecessary for good governance

question

In 1948, the Chicago Tribune wrongly predicted that R Thomas E. Dewey would beat incumbent President Harry S. Truman. Knowing what you know about the accuracy of various polls, what kind of poll would most likely have led the Chicago Tribune to make this erroneous prediction?

answer

a straw poll

question

The Gallup organization predicts that Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, wins the 2016 presidential election with 61 percent of the popular vote. If Cuomo actually wins by capturing 49 percent of the popular vote, to which factor, more that the others, would you attribute the discrepancy, given what you know about how successful Gallup has been in making presidential predictions?

answer

the presence of a prominent third-party candidate

question

A polling firm has been commissioned by the New York Times to assess public opinion about the performance of FEMA during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. What should the firm do first?

answer

determine the content and phrasing of the questions they want answered

question

Which of the following is the clearest example of a push poll question?

answer

Would you approve of the candidate's vote for the antipoverty bill if you knew that the candidate never read the legislation?

question

You are in a political science class. There is an argument about how to define the target population for a survey to determine if families with children would use school vouchers to send their children to charter schools. From which of the following populations should you select a sample?

answer

parents of children under 18

question

You are a pollster about to analyze polling data in order to reveal the data's implications for public policy. Which of the following subgroups within the data would you, as a representative of a reputable polling organization, pay least attention to?

answer

stockholders versus shareholders

question

In a random sample of 1,000 high school students, 29 percent indicated that they had read the Declaration of Independence at least once. If the margin of error is calculated to be 4 percent, which of the following statements is more likely than the others to be true?

answer

If the poll were conducted again, the percentage of those questioned who have read the Declaration of Independence would likely be between 25 and 33 percent

question

As a pollster for Smart Polling, you are concerned about gauging the public's attitudes about arms-control policy, because you believe that the public not only has little information on this complex topic but also has thought little about it. What procedure might you implement to decrease the inaccuracy of your polling data because of this lack of information?

answer

a screening procedure

question

Leslie is a white, middle class mother of two, who works as a librarian in the public library system of a large city in the American West. She is 57 years old. Given her demographic profile and the information provided presented in Table 10.1 on differences in the political opinions of women and men, which of the following statements about her political opinions would pollsters expect to be true?

answer

Leslie believes that American military interventions are usually a bad idea

question

In your American government class, you learn that most Americans' level of knowledge about history and politics is quite low and is declining every year. You also learn that political knowledge and political participation have a reciprocal effect on one another. Which of the following statements aligns with the statements presented in this scenario?

answer

in the future, the degree of political participation in America is likely to go down

question

During his campaign for reelection in 2012, Barack Obama deemphasized his work on health care reform. Which of the following reasons is the most plausible explanation for this decision, given what you know about the interaction between public opinion and policy and politics?

answer

deep divisions in public opinion on the issue were apparent

question

In what way are George Gallup's sentiments about the role of public opinion in governance similar to those of many of today's political thinkers?

answer

they are similar in believing that leaders should have an appraisal of public opinion and consider it in reaching their decisions

question

What did George Gallup mean when he said that public opinion polls \"speed up the process of democracy\"?

answer

that polls define issues of concern to the public

question

Which of the following surveys is more likely than the others to generate self-selection error?

answer

a mail-in survey of retirement community members about the privatization of Medicare

question

Why have the National Election Studies researchers conducted surveys before and after every mid-term and presidential election since 1952?

answer

to compile long-term studies of the electorate

question

When conducting surveys, why is the wording of questions a central concern?

answer

how a question is worded can unintentionally skew results

question

What is the difference between simple random sampling and stratified sampling?

answer

Stratified sampling combines random selection with predetermined weighting of a population's demographic characteristics, whereas random sampling does not

question

Web polls that allow anyone to weigh in on a topic are similar to which of the following?

answer

straw polls

question

Which type of survey question is best suited to addressing concerns about errors in public opinion polling resulting from difficulty in measuring intensity?

answer

\"feeling thermometer\" questions

question

Americans are likely to have the most difficulty forming opinions on which of the following topics?

answer

topics involving the European Central Bank and creditor nations

question

When they become ten or eleven, what political opinion of Democratic presidents would you expect of the children raised in politically active Republican households?

answer

that they would be more skeptical of Democratic presidents than Republican ones

question

Which of the following statements about the relationship between political knowledge and political participation is true?

answer

increases in political knowledge lead to increases in political participation

question

Which of the following statements best reflects the Framers' attitudes about public opinion?

answer

Public opinion is the best measure of the soundness of government policy

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