In a recent survey, 70% would pay higher taxes for drug treatment programs, 60% - to improve the schools. Yet in a vote in that same city, a proposition to raise taxes to fund schools failed by a narrow margin.
The question asks us to identify a factor that would least contribute to the explanation of the discrepancy, meaning four incorrect answer choices are likely to provide a plausible explanation.
Let's look at the answer choices:
(A) helps to resolve the paradox by pointing out that the survey sample is not representative of the voting population;
(B) helps to resolve the paradox by demonstrating a possibility that survey respondents were not truthful and voted differently despite their responses;
(C) helps to resolve the paradox by showing that the vote is representative of the voters' position on the package as a whole rather than the school funding measure in itself;
(D) adds to the paradox rather than resolve it. Since the majority of survey respondents said they would pay more in taxes for drug treatment programs, we would expect the proposition to pass the same way we would expect the school funding measure to pass based on the survey results. (D) is thus the correct answer choice.
(E) helps to resolve the paradox by arguing that the voters did not understand the proposal.
Does this make sense?
Let me know if you have any further questions.
SalvatoreJune 20, 2022
Hey,
I was wondering why A was incorrect?
Wouldn't the survey being invalid because it was unrepresentative of the population explain the difference in the data?
