How much do you know about public opinion polling?
A democracy is supposed to reflect the will of the people, but how can we know what the people want? One very important way is through public opinion polling, which uses surveys of relatively small samples of people to represent the much larger population they are drawn from.
Test your knowledge of public opinion polling by taking our 10-question quiz. The questions in this quiz come from our short course that explores how surveys are used to study public opinion.
Take the quiz and share your results with us on X (Twitter) @PewResearch and @pewmethods.
Question 1 of 10
Which of these provides the most accurate view of how the constituents of a member of Congress feel about a political issue?
The letters and emails they write to the member
The campaign contributions they make to the member
A scientific opinion poll of the constituents
Town Hall meetings where the member meets with groups of constituents
Question 2 of 10
Which of these is needed for an accurate opinion poll?
A representative sample
A very large sample
A very short questionnaire
Question 3 of 10
Which of these is a challenge for election polls but not for other kinds of polls?
Getting an accurate sample of the public
Asking unbiased questions
Figuring out who is actually going to vote
Getting a large enough sample
Question 4 of 10
“Weighting” is used in surveys for what purpose?
To reduce the size of the sample
To persuade more people to take the survey
To correct for demographic imbalances in the sample
To get more honest answers from respondents
Question 5 of 10
When survey researchers talk about the “mode of interview” they are referring to …
How long the interview lasts
Whether the interview was conducted by phone, mail, in person or online
How big the sample size is
What the margin of error is
Question 6 of 10
Over the past two decades, telephone survey response rates have …
Increased
Stayed the same
Decreased
Question 7 of 10
Compared with people with less formal education, those with more formal education …
Are more likely to agree to be interviewed for a poll
Are just as likely to agree to be interviewed for a poll
Are less likely to agree to be interviewed for a poll
Question 8 of 10
Which of the following facts would you want to have to help evaluate the quality of an opinion poll?
Which organization conducted the poll
The specific questions that were asked
What kind of sample was used for the poll
All of these
Question 9 of 10
People who participate in surveys but provide insincere answers just to earn money or rewards are sometimes called …
Bandwagon respondents
Oversample respondents
Bogus respondents
Recontact respondents
Question 10 of 10
“Social desirability bias” occurs when a poll respondent …
Answers a question truthfully because they don’t care how they look
Answers a question untruthfully to leave a favorable impression
Talks too much about themselves
Doesn’t know the answer to a question
How much do you know about public opinion polling?
You answered out of 10 questions correctly.
Don’t like your score? Check out our short course on polling.
Our short course explores the role of public opinion in society, the different kinds of opinion polls and how they are conducted. As with all of Pew Research Center’s work, it’s free.
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