Question

the government of a large city needs to determine whether the citys residents will support the addition of another fire house. the government decides to conduct a survey of the citys residents. which one of the following procedures would be the most appropriate for obtaining a sample of the citys residents? survey a random sample of the firemen who currently work in the city. survey every third person who walks into the local grocery store. survey the last 100 residents listed in the telephone directory. survey a random sample of persons within each neighborhood.

Explanation:

To get a representative sample of the city's residents, we need a method that randomly selects from all residents.

• Surveying firemen (first option) is biased as firemen are a specific group, not all residents.
• Surveying every third person in a grocery store (second option) is biased towards people who visit that grocery store, not all residents.
• Surveying the last 100 in a telephone directory (third option) is biased (e.g., excludes unlisted numbers, recent residents).
• Surveying a random sample within each neighborhood (fourth option) uses stratified or cluster sampling, which can represent different areas and thus the whole city's residents better, as neighborhoods represent different parts of the city and random sampling within them helps capture a diverse group.

Answer:

Survey a random sample of persons within each neighborhood.