Critical Reasoning

Exit polls, conducted by an independent organization among voters at five polling locations during a recent election, suggested that the incumbent mayor-a Democrat-was going to lose the election by a wide margin. But, in fact, by the time the final results were tabulated, the incumbent had won the election by a narrow margin.

Which of the following, if true, would explain the apparent contradiction in the results of the exit polls?

(A) The people chosen at random to be polled by the independent organization happened to be Democrats.

(B) The exit poll locations chosen by the independent organization were in predominantly Republican districts.

(C) The exit polls were conducted during the afternoon, when most of the districts' younger voters, who did not support the incumbent mayor, were at work.

(D) The incumbent mayor ran on a platform that promised to lower taxes if elected.

(E) An earlier poll, conducted the week before the election, had predicted that the incumbent mayor would win.

OA B

Source: Princeton Review

Option A :- Incorrect
This option does not give any positive explanations to the case, why? The random choice of Exit poll happened to be in favour of the Democrats then, the suggestive prediction would have been an exact opposite of what is obtained.

Option B :- correct
It is evident that the selected location was predominantly occupied by the Republicans'; this may be responsible for gross misconduct in the result on their side. But the outcome of the election went the other way round.

Option C :- Incorrect
The time of the day of conducting the poll has nothing whatsoever to do with the result obtained in comparison with the eventual outcome. The result is more of a location- dependent.

Option D :- Incorrect
This statement isn't inclusive among the factors around the survey conducted.

Option E :- Incorrect
This reference is directly opposite to the projection made in the question, the poll conducted predicted the incumbent Mayor to lose the election.