UBC DSCI 100 Midterm Review Exam
Questions & Answers 2025/2026
descriptive question - ANSWERSasks about summarized characteristics of a data set without
interpretation (reports facts)
exploratory question - ANSWERSasks if there are patterns, trends, or relationships within a data
set (used for hypotheses for future studies)
predictive question - ANSWERSasks about predicting measurements or labels for individuals and
focuses on what things predict a specific outcome but not what causes the outcome
inferential question - ANSWERSlooks for patterns, trends, or relationships in a single data set
AND asks for qualification of how applicable findings are to a wider population
causal question - ANSWERSasks abut whether or not changing one factor will lead to a change
in another factor, on average, in a wider population
mechanistic question - ANSWERSasks about the underlying mechanism of the observed
patterns, trends, or relationships
read_csv("filepath") - ANSWERSreads comma-separated values files
filter(tbl, condition) - ANSWERSobtains a subset of rows with desired values from a data frame
select(tbl, columns_as_arguments) - ANSWERSextracts specific columns from a data frame
, arrange(tbl, by=desc/asc(columns_as_arguments)) - ANSWERSorders the rows of a data frame
by values of a specific column
slice(tbl, row_range) - ANSWERSkeeps only the rows in a specific range
mutate(tbl, column_name = ...) - ANSWERSmodifies (use existing column name) or creates (use
a new column name) a column in a data set
ggplot(tbl, mapping) - ANSWERScreates a plot for data in a tidy data set
geom_bar() - ANSWERSbar graph
geom_point() - ANSWERSscatterplot
read_csv("filepath", skip = n) - ANSWERStells R how many lines to skip before it should start
reading in the data (n = number of lines skipped)
read_tsv("filepath") - ANSWERSreads tab-separated values files
read_delim("filepath", delim = "", col_names = FALSE) - ANSWERSthe generic version of
read_csv and read_tsv that can read either format
download.file(url, "filepath") - ANSWERSdownloads data from a url into the specified filepath
read_excel("filepath") - ANSWERSreads data stored in Excel files
read_csv2("filepath") - ANSWERSreads semicolon separated files
Questions & Answers 2025/2026
descriptive question - ANSWERSasks about summarized characteristics of a data set without
interpretation (reports facts)
exploratory question - ANSWERSasks if there are patterns, trends, or relationships within a data
set (used for hypotheses for future studies)
predictive question - ANSWERSasks about predicting measurements or labels for individuals and
focuses on what things predict a specific outcome but not what causes the outcome
inferential question - ANSWERSlooks for patterns, trends, or relationships in a single data set
AND asks for qualification of how applicable findings are to a wider population
causal question - ANSWERSasks abut whether or not changing one factor will lead to a change
in another factor, on average, in a wider population
mechanistic question - ANSWERSasks about the underlying mechanism of the observed
patterns, trends, or relationships
read_csv("filepath") - ANSWERSreads comma-separated values files
filter(tbl, condition) - ANSWERSobtains a subset of rows with desired values from a data frame
select(tbl, columns_as_arguments) - ANSWERSextracts specific columns from a data frame
, arrange(tbl, by=desc/asc(columns_as_arguments)) - ANSWERSorders the rows of a data frame
by values of a specific column
slice(tbl, row_range) - ANSWERSkeeps only the rows in a specific range
mutate(tbl, column_name = ...) - ANSWERSmodifies (use existing column name) or creates (use
a new column name) a column in a data set
ggplot(tbl, mapping) - ANSWERScreates a plot for data in a tidy data set
geom_bar() - ANSWERSbar graph
geom_point() - ANSWERSscatterplot
read_csv("filepath", skip = n) - ANSWERStells R how many lines to skip before it should start
reading in the data (n = number of lines skipped)
read_tsv("filepath") - ANSWERSreads tab-separated values files
read_delim("filepath", delim = "", col_names = FALSE) - ANSWERSthe generic version of
read_csv and read_tsv that can read either format
download.file(url, "filepath") - ANSWERSdownloads data from a url into the specified filepath
read_excel("filepath") - ANSWERSreads data stored in Excel files
read_csv2("filepath") - ANSWERSreads semicolon separated files
