AP Computer Science Principles Flashcards: Extracting Information from Data
Written by AP Content Team, Verified for 2026 AP Exams, Last updated: May 2026
Review key ideas with interactive flashcards. This set includes 36 cards to help you master important concepts.
What opportunities do data provide?
Data provide opportunities for identifying trends, making connections, and addressing problems.
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What opportunities do data provide?
Data provide opportunities for identifying trends, making connections, and addressing problems.
If a data analyst finds a strong correlation between students' shoe sizes and their reading levels, what can they conclude?
They cannot conclude a causal relationship exists. Additional research is needed, as a third variable (like age) is likely the cause.
Identify two challenges that data sets pose, regardless of their size.
Challenges include the need to clean data, incomplete data, invalid data, and the need to combine data sources.
Can simply collecting more data eliminate bias?
No, bias is not eliminated by simply collecting more data.
What is 'cleaning data'?
Cleaning data is a process that makes the data uniform without changing their meaning, such as replacing all equivalent abbreviations with the same word.
What often creates problems of bias in data?
Problems of bias are often created by the type or source of data being collected.
What is meant by 'invalid data' as a processing challenge?
Invalid data refers to data that is incorrect or not in the proper format, which presents a challenge for accurate processing.
What is data bias?
Data bias is a problem often created by the type or source of data being collected that can skew results.
What is Information?
Information is the collection of facts and patterns extracted from data.
Why are large data sets difficult to process on a single computer?
Large data sets are difficult to process using a single computer and may require parallel systems to handle the workload.
How do metadata help structure and organize data?
Metadata allow data to be structured and organized by providing additional, descriptive information about the primary data.
Does correlation found in data indicate a causal relationship?
No, a correlation found in data does not necessarily indicate that a causal relationship exists. Additional research is needed to understand the exact nature of the relationship.
What is the effect of changing or deleting metadata on the primary data?
Changes and deletions made to metadata do not change the primary data.
What are metadata used for?
Metadata are used for finding, organizing, and managing information.
What are Metadata?
Metadata are data about data. For example, an image's metadata may include its creation date or file size.
A researcher is studying national health trends but only has state-level data. What must they do?
They must combine data from a variety of sources (each state) to formulate a conclusion about national trends.
Can a conclusion always be drawn from a single data source?
No, often a single source does not contain the data needed to draw a conclusion.
A program processes 1,000 records per minute but fails when it receives 1,000,000 records. What is this system lacking?
The system is lacking scalability, which is the capacity to handle growing amounts of data for processing and storage.
What does the ability to process data depend on?
The ability to process data depends on the capabilities of the users and their tools.
Identify a challenge associated with processing data.
A key challenge is that data may need to be cleaned, may be incomplete or invalid, or may need to be combined from multiple sources.
Why might data collected from users in an open text field not be uniform?
Data may not be uniform because users may choose to abbreviate, spell, or capitalize something differently from user to user.
How does the size of a data set affect the information that can be extracted from it?
The size of a data set affects the amount of information that can be extracted from it.
Why is it often necessary to combine data from multiple sources?
A single source often does not contain all the data needed to draw a conclusion, so it may be necessary to combine data from a variety of sources.
What information can be extracted from metadata?
Metadata provides information for finding, organizing, and managing the primary data, which helps in structuring and understanding it.
What is the primary goal of cleaning data?
The goal is to make the data uniform without changing the original meaning of the data.
What is the relationship between a system's computational capacity and data processing?
The computational capacity of a system directly affects how data sets can be processed and stored, which is a key aspect of scalability.
What is system scalability in the context of data?
Scalability refers to a system's capacity to handle growing amounts of data, which affects how that data can be processed and stored.
Replacing 'N/A', 'none', and blank entries in a survey with a single, consistent value is an example of what?
This is an example of cleaning data, a process that makes data uniform without changing its meaning.
What is meant by 'incomplete data' as a processing challenge?
Incomplete data refers to datasets where some records are missing values, posing a challenge for analysis.
What information can be extracted from data?
Facts, patterns, trends, and connections can be extracted from data to help address problems.
What kind of system might be required for processing very large data sets?
Large data sets may require parallel systems for processing, as they can be difficult to manage on a single computer.
Why is scalability an important consideration when working with data sets?
Scalability is important because the computational capacity of a system affects how data sets can be processed and stored.
How can metadata increase the effective use of data?
Metadata can increase the effective use of data or data sets by providing additional information, which allows data to be structured and organized.
A photo is taken on a smartphone. Provide an example of the data and the metadata.
The data is the image itself, while the metadata could be the date the photo was taken or its file size.
What does it mean for digitally processed data to show a correlation?
It means the data show a relationship or connection between variables, but it does not necessarily mean one variable causes the other.
How are trends and connections identified?
Trends and connections are identified by extracting facts and patterns from data.