Final answer:
The correct answer is D) standard deviation. The standard deviation is a measure of how spread out the values in a data set are, and a larger standard deviation indicates more variability around the mean of the distribution.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question is asking about a characteristic of a distribution of scores where there is a great deal of variability around the mean. When scores vary widely from the mean, it indicates that there is more dispersion or spread in the data. This variability is measured by the standard deviation.
The correct answer to the question is D) standard deviation. This measure provides a numerical value that describes how spread out the values in a data set are. A larger standard deviation means that the data points tend to be further from the mean, indicating more variability in the data set. Conversely, a smaller standard deviation indicates that the data points are closer to the mean and less variable.
To illustrate, if we consider two distributions with the same mean, where one distribution has a larger standard deviation than the other, we expect the distribution with the larger standard deviation to have more scores that deviate significantly from the mean. An example can be seen in the case of wait times at two different supermarkets; if Supermarket B has a higher standard deviation in wait times than Supermarket A, we can infer that the variability and unpredictability of wait times are greater at Supermarket B.