How to think like a biologist

Question 1

Independent variable

Answer 1

A variable whose value does not depend on the value of another variable

Question 2

Dependent variable

Answer 2

A measured quantity whose value depends on the value of another variable.

Question 3

Discrete variable

Answer 3

A quantity that can only take certain, discrete values

Question 4

Continuous variable

Answer 4

A quantity that can take a continuous range of values

Question 5

Scatterplot

Answer 5

A type of graph where individual datapoints from two continuous variables are plotted to assess whether the variables are correlated in any way

Question 6

Histogram

Answer 6

A type of graph where a range of possible values is plotted along the x-axis and the frequency of datapoints in each interval in the range is plotted on the y-axis