Question

A moving average can be used to smooth which of the following?

1) Time series data
2) Categorical data
3) Numerical data
4) Qualitative data

Answer 1

A moving average is used to smooth time series data by averaging subsets of numbers to reveal underlying trends, but it is not applied to categorical or qualitative data.

Step-by-step explanation:

A moving average is a statistical method used to smooth variations in data and help reveal underlying trends, especially in time series data. It is not typically used for smoothing categorical data, qualitative data, or numerical data that is not part of a time series. Instead, a moving average is calculated by taking the average of any subset of numbers and continually recalculating it as new data becomes available, which is particularly useful when analyzing time-ordered data points. Let's consider an example: