This document discusses key concepts in statistics. It defines statistics as the science of collecting, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting data to assist decision making. Descriptive statistics are used to summarize and present data, while inferential statistics allow generalization from a sample to a population. A population is the total group being studied, while a sample is a subset. Variables can be qualitative, involving categories, or quantitative, involving numbers. Quantitative variables can be discrete, taking certain values, or continuous. The level of measurement for data, such as nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio, determines what analyses can be done.