Final answer:
The correct answer is c) The likelihood of different outcomes. Probability models quantify the chance of various outcomes occurring. Examples include a 50% chance of getting heads when flipping a coin.
Step-by-step explanation:
Probability models describe a random phenomenon by telling us the likelihood of different outcomes. The key aspect of any probability model is to quantify the chance that various outcomes will occur when an experiment or a random event is performed. As such, the correct answer to the student's question is option c) The likelihood of different outcomes.
For example, when tossing a fair coin, the theoretical probability of getting a head is 50 percent because there are two equally likely outcomes. This doesn't guarantee that if you flip the coin twice you'll get one head and one tail, but as the number of flips increases, the actual results will trend towards the theoretical probability.
Probability models are not concerned with the exact outcome in each trial (option b) since this is unpredictable, nor do they provide the certainty of outcomes (option a) or the sequential order of events (option d).