American Board of Surgery Qualifying Exam (ABS QE) Practice Test

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Prepare for the American Board of Surgery Qualifying Exam with detailed quizzes. Study with flashcards and multiple-choice questions to master the ABS QE topics. Get all the hints and explanations you need to succeed on your first attempt!

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Which type of data consists of "real" numbers and can be either normal or skewed?

Nominal Data
Ordinal Data
Continuous Data
Categorical Data

The correct answer is: Continuous Data

Continuous data consists of "real" numbers that can take any value within a given range. This type of data is characterized by the ability to be measured and can represent quantities, such as height, weight, temperature, or time. Continuous data can be normally distributed, which means it follows a bell-shaped curve with most values clustering around the mean, or it can be skewed, indicating that values may have a long tail on one side of the distribution. This flexibility in shape makes continuous data particularly useful in statistical analysis, as different methods can be applied depending on the distribution. In contrast, nominal data refers to categories without any inherent order, ordinal data represents categories with a defined order but not specific distances between values, and categorical data includes both nominal and ordinal data but does not address numerical properties. Thus, continuous data is correctly identified as the type that consists of "real" numbers and can be either normally or skewed distributed.