11% of Americans can't find the USA on a map - Page 5

Provost Harrison · November 21, 2002, 18:22

Quote:

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin

Much of a muchness that one. Reno

What is further west, Barcelona, Spain, or London, England?

I could tell you it is LA not Reno quite easily, whereas between London or Barcelona...well, they both lie on the Greenwich Meridian so that isn't a fair question...

Anodyne · November 21, 2002, 18:25

OR; What is the westernmost capital in Europe?

rah · November 21, 2002, 18:31

Quote:

Originally posted by Sava
silly rah, that was my whole point... many of these so-called "national" polls aren't true representations of the demographics of America. I assume that you are in the polling industry. And you are correct, the people that do not effectively balance polls do give your industry a bad name. Do I think every single poll is crap? No. You should stop generalizing my words.

My overall attitude on polls is that they should be taken with a grain of salt, that's all.

It's nice that you assume I have no knowledge of the polling industry. But I will stop there as I'm not about to stoop to your level of name-calling.

Ah, your story changes when you get challanged. No surprise. Read what you wrote an I quoted from you in my earlier post.
Based on that, no, you don't understand. If you want to weasel out of the statement and retract, fine. If you still stand by what you posted...........I'll be surprised since your later post leads me to believe that you actually do understand it a little.

RAH
And yes, I take it personally when people attempt to trash the industry that I work for when they don't know what they're talking about.

Provost Harrison · November 21, 2002, 18:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Ade
OR; What is the westernmost capital in Europe?

Good one. And I am not entirely sure...is it Lisbon?

Dis · November 21, 2002, 18:39

what about reyjavek? I have no idea how to spell it. It's a city in Iceland and I also believe its the capitol of iceland.

Felch · November 21, 2002, 18:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Ming
What's more important is that the sample is "representative" of the US and NOT just random

Granted, but randomness is the easiest way to make something (hopefully) representative. Point is, a small sample size is still valid.

rah · November 21, 2002, 18:58

On a random sample for the US, it would have to be considerably larger than 1000. I've got a guy working for me that could tell me exactly how big it would have to be, but he went home

. Assuming true random, and not biased random, (I.E. any phone survey is biased random (without demo weighting on the back end) due to the lower incidence of phones as income decreases.)

But I'll bet it's around 5000. Which I'm sure we would all agree is still considered SMALL. (I really liked your use of (hopefully)).

RAH

Ming · November 21, 2002, 19:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Felch X
Granted, but randomness is the easiest way to make something (hopefully) representative.

Actually, it's the exact opposite. A random poll has no hope of being representative and accurate. As Rah points out, it's a science to get a small sample that truely reflects reality.

rah · November 21, 2002, 19:05

It all comes down to what you consider small. But you are correct, for a random sample to have any hope of being a rep sample, it has to be larger. And since every survey we send out costs, it's cheaper to take the time to make it a rep sample and go with the smaller sample.

And most random samples are likely to be biased in some manner based on the selected methodology, so it's always preferred to weight the answers on the back end if you can collect demographics on this type of sample.

OneFootInTheGrave · November 21, 2002, 19:10

Interesting only 5000 to get the good prediction for 300 million....
Can this be right?

At least you have to choose different racial/age/geographic parts.

Can't make it in one city can you?

Dauphin · November 21, 2002, 19:14

Quote:

Originally posted by Provost Harrison

I could tell you it is LA not Reno quite easily, whereas between London or Barcelona...well, they both lie on the Greenwich Meridian so that isn't a fair question...

I'm almost certain Barcelona doesn't lie on the meridien (close, but definitely not) and I'm sure Reno is west of Los Angeles (just).

rah · November 21, 2002, 19:16

As I said, that was a guess (even though from experience i doubt it's much higher than that) The trick is your random methodology. If I based it on percentages of pop by AREA CODE and did a raised digit of selected phone numbers from the phone data bases (raised last digit is used to not eliminate unlisted numbers, and maximize working exchanges) Then weighted for the lower income homes, I think 5000 would be more than sufficient.

Random, but not completely random.

tinyp3nis · November 21, 2002, 19:17

Ok, I didn't get that biggest religion right either... I wasn't sure what it was, only thing I was sure it's not christianity...well I was wrong. I recall being a kid and believing that christianity was the biggest, and then getting information about (from source that I can't remember but remember being considered reliable source by myself) christianity not being the biggest.... It's a conspiracy!!!!

I allways found polls (especially the ones about popularity before elections) so accurate that they make the counting of the votes boring to watch because you already know the results...

orange · November 21, 2002, 19:18

Reno is west of Los Angeles and Barcelona is well east of the PM.

orange · November 21, 2002, 19:22

Here's a good one...

Don't look at a map

Which is closer to the Prime Meridian (that is, further west)

Moscow, Russia or Jerusalem, Israel

rah · November 21, 2002, 19:24

Quote:

Originally posted by tinyp3nis
I allways found polls (especially the ones about popularity before elections) so accurate that they make the counting of the votes boring to watch because you already know the results...

In the US, people are starting to have a problem with these and as a result are lying and acting non committed. This got so out of hand with poll exit interviews, that if you remember, they were hardly used this election. (not our specialty, so it didn't cost us much money) And the networks are now suspicious of them and don't want to put their reputation on the line.

In Illinois, the election for Gov. and Att. Gen. were both reported to be close, right up to the day of the election, but both ended up reasonable landslides. More people are unwilling to tell the truth to pollsters. (not good for our business, but fortunately we concentrate more on consumer goods and customer satisfaction)

RAH

edited...
And just for clarification. We've really have been talking about completed surveys, not sample. We would guess the response rate to figure out how much sample we would need. (i.e. If we had experienced a 10 % completion rate, or just guessed, we would pull 50000 sample to get 5000 completes.)
Most random phone surveys will not even perform to this level.

Dauphin · November 21, 2002, 19:26

Jerusalem. If I'm using my mental map properly. Either that or the Black see is messed up.

orange · November 21, 2002, 19:27

RAH - I believe the polling in a New Jersey town for Mayor was the same way...they gauged it to be a landslide for one guy, and it turned out that people stopped voting...and their results were off the mark, and the other candidate (a virtual unknown) won by 32 or so votes. A recount was of course called for

orange · November 21, 2002, 19:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Jerusalem. If I'm using my mental map properly. Either that or the Black see is messed up.

correct, but I was too fast for you, and caught your spelling error

Provost Harrison · November 21, 2002, 19:38

Well I was also very disappointed by the performance of my own country, who did worse than the US in many of those polls. There are a lot of stupid people all over, luckily not many of our stupid people tend to have the money to get on the internet

Except Bods

Capt Dizle · November 21, 2002, 19:43

Americans are stable rational people going about the business of enjoying the prosperity that the American political/economic system provides. Therefore, why should they care where third world countries are?

Folks from outside the US, in less fortunate circumstances, are envious of Americans. They are so obsessed they know so much about us.

XarXo · November 21, 2002, 19:44

20 of 20, this poll is truly difficult? I can't believe it! (no joking)

A TRULY difficult geographical question is: In which continent is Kerguelen? (as accepted by global standards)

Seneca · November 21, 2002, 19:48

I wonder how large the number of Christians would be if you discounted nominal Christians? The CIA factbook puts the number of Christians in Britain as 40 million...

Provost Harrison · November 21, 2002, 19:50

Well I got all those ones from this thread wrong

I thought Iceland was further east, that Barcelona was on the Greenwich Meridian and underestimated the bulge in the western seaboard

Maniac · November 21, 2002, 20:22

France.

Maniac · November 21, 2002, 20:22

What's the capital of Malawi?

Provost Harrison · November 21, 2002, 20:30

Quote:

Originally posted by XarXo
20 of 20, this poll is truly difficult? I can't believe it! (no joking)

A TRULY difficult geographical question is: In which continent is Kerguelen? (as accepted by global standards)

It's in the South Indian, so would it count as Antarctica?