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  3. There were two widely divergent influences on the early development of statistical methods. Statistics had a mother who was dedi

There were two widely divergent influences on the early development of statistical methods. Statistics had a mother who was dedi

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问题      There were two widely divergent influences on the early development of statistical methods. Statistics had a mother who was dedicated to keeping orderly records of governmental units (state and statistics come from the same Latin root, status) and a gentlemanly gambling father who relied on mathematics to increase his skill at playing the odds in games of chance. The influence of the mother on the offspring, statistics, is represented by counting, measuring, describing, tabulating, ordering, and the taking of censuses-all of which led to modern descriptive statistics. From the influence of the father came modern inferential statistics, which is based squarely on theories of probability.
     Descriptive statistics involves tabulating, depicting, and describing collections of data. These data may be either quantitative, such as measures of height, intelligence, or grade level-variables that are characterized by an underlying continuumor the data may represent qualitative variables, such as sex, college major, or personality typo. Large masses of data must generally undergo a process of summarization or reducing to comprehensibly form the properties of an otherwise unwieldy mass of data.
     Inferential statistics is a formalized body of methods for solving another class of problems that present great difficulties for the unaided human mind. This general class of problems characteristically involves attempts to make predictions using a sample of observations. For example, a school superintendent wishes to determine the proportion of children in a large school system who come to school without breakfast, have been vaccinated for flu, or whatever. Having a little knowledge of statistics, the superintendent would know that it is unnecessary and inefficient to question each child; the proportion for the entire district could be estimated fairly accurately from a sample of as few as 100 children.
     Thus, the purpose of inferential statistics is to predict or estimate characteristics of a population from a knowledge of the characteristics of only a sample of the population.
Which of the following statements is true about descriptive statistics?
选项 A、It combines quantitative variables and qualitative variables.
B、It can be used to deal with only quantitative variables.
C、It helps to summarize properties of a group of data.
D、It helps to make predictions using a sample of observations.
答案C
解析 仔细比较四个选项。A“它将数量变量和质量变量结合起来了”，这误解了第二段中第二句话“either…or…”句型，要么是数量变量，要么是质量变量；B“它只能用来处理数量变量”，也与上面句型含义相悖；C“它有助于总结一组数据的特征”，这正是第二段最后一句话“Large masses of data．．．the properties of an otherwise unwieldy mass of data．”的含义；D“它有助于使用观察抽样进行预测”，这是推理性统计。
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