Which choice most logically completes the text?

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Though longitudinal studies like the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS), which has surveyed approximately 500,000 participants in Northern Ireland to find trends in public health, are expensive because they are conducted over many years, by spanning these time frames, they can reveal causal patterns. But studies for which cause and effect is not at issue, like a public opinion study that merely seeks to determine the proportion of a city's population that supports a particular tax proposal, can succeed without longitudinal methods, which means that _______.

the public opinion study could likely be completed at a considerably lower cost than NILS.

longitudinal methods would likely be less suitable for studies in public opinion than for studies in public health.

longitudinal methods would likely be less expensive for studies in public opinion than for studies in public health.

the results from NILS would likely be more reliable than those from the public opinion study.