AP Stats Vocab Lesson 1

individuals

the objects described by a set of data

variable

any characteristic of an individual

categorical Variable

places an individual in one of several groups or categories

quantitative variable

takes numerical values for which it makes sense to find an average

distribution

tells us what values the variable takes and how often it takes those values

inference

drawing conclusion beyond the data at hand

frequency table

displays the counts (frequencies) of individuals in each category

frequencies

the counts of individuals

relative frequency table

displays the percents (relative frequencies) of individuals in each category.

relative frequencies

percents of individuals

roundoff error

error which may occur when percents are rounded

bar graph (or bar chart)

displays the distribution of a categorical variable

two-way table

describes two categorical variables, one is a row variable, and the other is a column variable

marginal distribution

distribution of values of one of the categorical variables in a two-way table of counts

conditional distribution

values of a variable among individuals who have a specific value of another variable

segmented bar graph

has single bars with "segments" that correspond to different variables.

Association

specific values of one variable tend to occur in common with specific values of the other

outliers

individual values that fall outside the overall pattern

dotplot

each data value is shown as a dot above its location on a number line

symmetry

the right and left sides of the graph are approximately mirror images of each other

skewness

one side of the graph is much longer than the other side

unimodal

one peak

bimodal

two peaks

multimodal

more than two clear peaks

histogram

displays the distribution of a quantitative variable with bars of equal width

median M

the number such that half of the observations are smaller and the other half are larger

quartiles

the data is divided into four equal groups

interquartile range (IQR)

measures the range of the middle 50% of the data

five-number summary

Minimum, Q1, M, Q2, Maximum

standard deviation sx

the average distance of the observations from their mean

variance

the average squared distance of the observations from their mean

percentile

the pth percentile of a distribution is the value with p percent of the observations less than it