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　　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 questionaires(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 questionaires, 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 selected 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.

　　1.From the passage we know that the earlies pre-election polls were _____ in reflecting the public opinions.

　　A. meaningful

　　B. inaccurate

　　C. satisfying

　　D. successful

　　答案B.文章第一段告诉我们，最初的选举前的民意测验反映的仅仅是地方性的、局部的意见，由此可见它们在反映民意方面是不够准确的。

　　2.All of the following are the characteristics of the inquiries are mentioned in the second paragraph except _____.

　　A. a large number of questionaires 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

　　答案D.从文章第二段可知，这些调查共同的特点是重量不重质，错误地认为发出去的问卷越多结果就越准确，而且调查的对象缺乏广泛性。由此可见，A，B，C三项都是这些民意调查的特点，而D项既不符合事实，也谈不上是什么特点。

　　3.We can infer from the passage that in the beginning the newspaper editors were _____ Gallup's system.

　　A. doubtful of

　　B. enthusiastic about

　　C. displeased with

　　D. indignant at

　　答案A.由文章第四段可知，盖洛普花了很长时间才说服35位报纸编辑采用他的调查方法。由此可断定，对他的方法编辑们起初是持怀疑态度的。B项不符合事实，C项和D项在文中也找不到依据。

　　4.We can infer from the passage that in the early 1930s _____.

　　A. Gallup was a famous journalist

　　B. the Literary Digest like 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

　　答案D.盖洛普当时只是个年轻的记者，费了很大的劲才说服别人采用他的调查方法，所以A项是不正确的。文中虽然两次提到《文摘》月刊保持和打破纪录，但不能由此推断它喜欢破纪录，所以B项也不是正确答案。C项在文中找不到依据，所以也不对。只有D项是正确的推论，因为文章第二段的最后一句话告诉我们，《文摘》对1932年选举的预测误差仅为百分之一，而且第四段又说编辑们给盖洛普提的条件是如果他的预测不如《文摘》准确，他就得掏钱负担整个调查的费用，可见《文摘》采用的方法是为大多数人所接受的。

　　5.Gallup's system proved to be _____.

　　A. much cheaper

　　B. a great failure

　　C. a huge success

　　D. much costly

　　答案C.看懂文章的最后一句即可确定正确答案是C. whereas Gallup's was off by less than 1 percent意为“而盖洛普的预测误差不到百分之一”。

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