Final answer:
Option B) query is used to ask questions about your data. A query can organize and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data collected from various sources such as questionnaires. The 50% of high school seniors planning to attend college in a survey is labeled as a statistic.
Step-by-step explanation:
A query is used to ask questions about your data, making option B) query the correct answer to the question. When you collect data, for instance, the quiz scores of students throughout a term, you might want to analyze this information. A query in a database or spreadsheet application could be used to sort, filter, and make calculations on this data, such as determining the percentage of students who scored above a certain threshold, thereby turning quantitative data into categories like grades (A, B, C, D, F).
In the context of research, questionnaires are commonly used to gather information through closed-ended questions (yes-or-no or multiple choice) which yield quantitative data, or through open-ended questions which provide qualitative data. These data types are analyzed differently: quantitative data can be easily tabulated and statistically analyzed, while qualitative data provides a wide range of subjective responses that can be much more complex to organize.
With regard to the example of the U.S. federal government survey of high school seniors, the 50% indicating plans to attend a four-year college or university would constitute a statistic since it is a measure derived from a sample of a population