Question

What’s Wrong? In Exercises 25–28, identify what is wrong.

The electronic cigarette maker V2 Cigs sponsored a poll showing that 55% of

smokers surveyed say that they feel ostracized “sometimes,” “often,” or “always.”

Short answer

The data is not clear; only the cumulative proportion for each category is stated.

Step-by-step solution

Given information

A cigarette maker, V2 Cigs, sponsored a poll.

The poll surveyed smokers and found that55% of them feel ostracized “sometimes,” “often,” or “always.”

Identification of the incorrect element in the survey

A survey data with the proportions stated for each of the three categories—sometimes, often, and always—would be useful.

The data is the cumulative proportion of all categories in the study, which is of no practical use. Different surveyed categories cannot be compared as the percentage of adults is not defined for each category.