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1.1 Introducing Statistics: What Can We Learn from Data?

Part of Exploring One-Variable Data in AP® Statistics. Read the opening section, then create a free account for the full interactive lesson, practice, and progress tracking.

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What is Statistics?

Statistics is a powerful tool for understanding our world.

Key Terms: Individual — also called a case or observation Variable Population Sample

Statistics answers questions that have variability — no two individuals are exactly alike, so we need tools to understand patterns across many observations.

Two branches of statistics:

  • Descriptive statistics — summarizing and displaying data
  • Inferential statistics — drawing conclusions about a population from sample data

In this unit

10 lessons

  1. 1.1Introducing Statistics: What Can We Learn from Data?This lesson
  2. 1.2The Language of Variation: VariablesPreview lesson
  3. 1.3Representing a Categorical Variable with TablesPreview lesson
  4. 1.4Representing a Categorical Variable with GraphsPreview lesson
  5. 1.5Representing a Quantitative Variable with GraphsPreview lesson
  6. 1.6Describing the Distribution of a Quantitative VariablePreview lesson
  7. 1.7Summary Statistics for a Quantitative VariablePreview lesson
  8. 1.8Graphical Representations of Summary StatisticsPreview lesson
  9. 1.9Comparing Distributions of a Quantitative VariablePreview lesson
  10. 1.10The Normal DistributionPreview lesson

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