Are the outcomes of a dice roll an example of a discrete or a continuous variable?

1 Answer
Geoff K.
Jan 26, 2018

Discrete; they are countable.

Explanation:

A discrete variable is one that can only take on countably many values, usually integers. Examples would be:

  • A score on a math test
  • How many children a family has
  • The toss of a coin
  • Whether someone has a disease or not
  • Someone's age (rounded to the year)

A continuous variable is one that can take on infinitely many uncountable values. Examples would be:

  • The time until the next bus arrives
  • The maximum temperature for a day
  • A person's height/weight

Because these values could have endless decimal places, we have to round them and/or group them by range. For example, a temperature is always rounded to the nearest degree (or 0.1 degree), since it doesn't usually help to use more precision than that.

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