Which of the following is NOT a source of secondary data?

• A. Business websites
• B. Media
• C. Internal data
• D. Primary research

Answer: (D)

The main idea here is the difference between secondary data and primary data. Secondary data is information that already exists and was collected for another purpose. Examples like business websites and the media provide data that researchers can reuse without collecting it themselves. Internal data—the records a business already has for its own operations—also counts as secondary data when used for a new study, because it exists before you start your research and wasn’t gathered specifically for this project.

Primary research, on the other hand, involves collecting new data directly for the current study—surveys, interviews, experiments, and the like. Since this data is newly gathered by the researcher, it is not secondary data.

So the thing that is not a source of secondary data is primary research.