Passage 3 Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage. The first pre-election poll, or “straw vote”,as it was then called,was conducted by the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian before the 1824 presidential election.This straw vote and the many that followed it really registered nothing but local opinion.However, as communications improved and elections were won by closer and closer margins,newspapers and journals tried desperately to satisfy their readers’ curiosity in more reliable ways. Before the 1928 elections,no fewer than eighty-five publications made private inquiries,generally by means of questionnaires(问卷、调查表)sent to subscribers(订户) and by telephone surveys.The principle common to all these inquiries was that they depended on quantity rather than quality.little effort was made to reach representatives of all segments(部分) of the population.Still,the erroneous belief persisted that the greater the number of questionnaires,the more accurate the results would be .The record was held by the American monthly Literary Digest,which sent out millions of postcards with short and pointed questions before each election,and received many hundreds of thousands of replies.In fact ,in 1932,the Literary Digest’s forecast was off by only 1 percent. In view of such striking achievements,it seemed rather impertinent(粗鲁的) for the young American journalist,George Gallup,to claim that large numbers were irrelevant,and that equally accurate or better predictions could be made with a small but carefully 0selected sample of the population and a small team of skilled interviewers. In 1936,it took Gallup a long time to convince thirty-five newspaper editors that his system was much cheaper than the customary mass inquiries and that it could provide surprisingly accurate predictions.The editors finally agreed,on condition that if Gallup’s predictions were less accurate than those obtained by the tried method of the Literary Digest,he would have to refund (赔偿) the entire cost of the investigation.Although the Literary Digest broke its own record by obtaining two million replies to its electoral postcards that year,its prediction was wrong by 19 percent,whereas Gallup’s was off by less than 1 percent. 31.From the passage we know that the earliest pre-election polls were ____ in reflecting the public opinions. A)meaningful B)inaccurate C)satisfying D)successful
32.All of the following are the characteristics of the inquiries mentioned in the second paragraph except____ . A)a large number of questionnaires were sent out B)quantity rather than quality was emphasized C)almost no effort was made to interview people from every walk of life D)every publication in America got involved
33.We can infer from the passage that in the beginning the newspaper editors were____ Gallup’s system. A)doubtful of C)displeased with B)enthusiastic about D)indignant at
34.We can infer from the passage that in the early 1930s___ A)Gallup was a famous journalist B)the Literary Digest liked to break records C)the literary Digest was the biggest monthly in America D)the method of the Literary Digest was popular and well-received
35.Gallup’s system proved to be____ . A)much cheaper B)a great failure C)a huge success D)much costly