Survey and Polls - Flaw in reasoning Q's

[pacer]

I have a general question regarding flaw in reasoning for stimulus containing information on surveys and polls.

From my understanding, surveys and polls are conducted with a subset of the population and the findings are used to make generalizations on the beliefs, preferences, actions of the entire groups. This is just how surveys and polls work by nature. Would this be considered a flaw in reasoning? (i.e. making general conclusion based on data from a subset of the group) for all stimulus that present data from surveys and polls and the question asks for flaw in reasoning.

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi pacer,

You're correct that what you identified is a general characteristic of all surveys/polls, by definition. The flaw comes in when there's a reason to suspect the sample in the survey/poll might not accurately reflect/represent the whole population, which generally happens when the sample is not randomly drawn or is chosen in some biased way.

[BostonLawGuy]

I may also add that surveys can also be flawed if the respondents are not honest. Test 13, Section 2 question 5 tests you on this fact.