I need help with high school AP Statistics!?

Question

i need help on these 2 questions plz!

why is this NOT an experiment, it says to explain carefully

It has been suggested that there is a "gender gap" in political party preference in the u.s., with women more likely than men to prefer democratic candidates. a political scientist selects a large sample of registered voters, both men and women, and asks them whether they voted for the democratic and repub. candidate in the last congressional election.

and this question

before a new variety of frozen muffins is put on the market, it is subjected to extensive taste testing. people are asked to taste the new muffin and a competing brand and to say which they prefer. (both muffins unidentified in test). Is this an experiment? why or why not?

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Answer 1

1.  Well the answer to the first one might have to do with how the sample of voters were chosen.  If it was just a large sample the results might not reflect the population.  When selecting the group of voters the political scientist would have to make sure that race, s*x, income, education, etc are in relatively close proportion to the whole population.   If the scientist were to select a large sample of people from San Francisco, they would receive very different results than from a group of people in Kansas.