Five hundred residents of a city with a population of 240,495 are polled to obtain information on voting intentions in an upcoming city election.The five hundred residents in this study is an example of a(n)

A) census.
B) sample.
C) observation.
D) population.

The 500 residents in the study are a sample, or a smaller subset of the entire population of the city. This sample is being used to make inferences about the larger population's voting intentions. A census would involve surveying every single resident of the city, which is likely not feasible or practical in this case. An observation would involve simply observing the behavior of the population without actively surveying them. The population refers to the entire group being studied, in this case, the population of the city.