2. 外语
  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 modem 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 continuum -- or the data may represent qualitative variable, such as sex, college major, or personality type. Large masses of data must generally undergo a process of summarization or reduction before they are comprehensible. Descriptive statistics is a tool for describing or summarizing or reducing to comprehensible 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 knowledge of the characteristics of only a sample of the population. (328 words)
Why does the author mention the "mother" and "father" in the first paragraph?
选项 A、To present the background of statistics in a humorous and understandable way
B、To point out that parent can teach their children statistics
C、To explain that there are different kinds of variables
D、To introduce inferential statistics
答案A
解析 从文章第一段第二句“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．”可知，统计学一方面是要井井有条地作记录，另一方面是要通过数学运算进行估测，在这里作者运用了拟人手法以一种幽默风趣的方式交代了统计学的背景。据此判断，答案是A。
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