Barnard Statistics Practice Test 2026 – Complete Exam Prep

Descriptive statistics describe what the data look like: they summarize and present the actual dataset with measures like the mean, median, standard deviation, and graphs. They don’t try to say anything about a larger group beyond what was collected. Inferential statistics, in contrast, use the data you have to make inferences about a broader population and quantify uncertainty (for example, with confidence intervals or hypothesis tests).

So the best statement is that descriptive statistics summarize data. The other ideas mix up the roles: descriptive statistics don’t draw conclusions about populations, descriptive statistics aren’t about summing up data in the inferential sense, and inferential statistics don’t focus on summarizing the sample alone but on generalizing beyond it to the population.