What is statistics? Statistics is the science of getting information from data.
How is a statistics class different from other math classes?
Answer 1: In other math classes, it is easy to compare your answer to the right answer in the example or in the back of the book, or in the solution key, and know whether your answer is completely right or not. In statistics, the right answer is often a sentence, or maybe even a paragraph, about what information you found in the data. So, to decide whether your answer is correct or not, you need to think about what information each of these describe. Generally speaking, it is very useful to discuss this with someone else. Please take advantage of the opportunities provided to do that. (Further note: Can you imagine a situation where one correct answer is actually better than another correct answer? To do well in the course, pay attention to situations like that.)
Answer 2: Many numerical answers in statistics are not completely precise. Often you will round off your final answer, to some extent, so that it is easier to interpret. There are no strict guidelines about how much you should round off. It will vary in different situations. To understand the instructions you are given about rounding, it will help to understand what the question was and think about what information is conveyed. For example, according to the 2000 US Census, the average number of children per family (including only families who have some children) is 1.86. Since the number of children in each family is a whole number: 1, 2, 3, etc. why do you think that they report the average number of children with decimal places? Does that convey more or less useful information than if they rounded it to a whole number. (Source: www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabST-F1-2000.pdf