1. Define the word statistics. What are its different
meanings / senses?
The Word statistics has been derived from Latin word
“Status” or the Italian word “Statista”, meaning of these
words is “Political State” or a Government. In ancient times,
the government used to collect the information regarding the
population and 'property or wealth' of the country- the former
enabling the government to have an idea of man-power of
the country and the latter providing it a basis for introducing
new taxes and levies.
Today the word statistics has the following three different
meanings / senses.
Plural Meaning / Sense.
In plural sense the word statistics means “Facts
systematically arranged are called statistics.” They may
either be in ascending order or descending order. i.e. 1,
2, 5, 9, 11 or 11, 9, 5, 2, 1.
Singular Meaning / Sense.
In the singular sense the word statistics means “The
branch of mathematics that deals with the methods of
collection, summarization and analysis of data is called
statistics.”
Prior to understand the third meaning, we shall have to
understand some other terms.

2. Population
Totality that possesses the characteristics of our
interest is called population. For example students of
ICS class at The Pioneer College Bhakkar.
Parameter
Totality that possesses the characteristics of our
interest is called population and a value obtained from
the population is called parameter. It is always
constant. It is usually unknown. It is denoted by
Greek letters. i.e. μ , σ etc.
Sample
A representative part of population is called sample.
For example fifteen students randomly selected form
the ICS class at The Pioneer College Bhakkar.
Statistic
A representative part of population is called sample
and a value obtained from a sample is called statistic.
It is always variable. It can be known easily as
compared to parameter. It is denoted by English
letters. i.e. and S.
Plural of the word “Statistic”.
The third meaning / sense of the word statistics is “the
values obtained from samples are called statistics.”