______ statistics summarizes data through the use of measures of central tendency, variance, and standard deviation.

A) Inferential
B) Qualitative
C) Descriptive
D) Quantitative

Descriptive statistics is the branch of statistics that deals with the summarization and description of data, including measures of central tendency (like mean, median, mode), variance, and standard deviation. Inferential statistics, on the other hand, makes predictions or inferences about a population based on a sample. Qualitative and quantitative are types of data, not statistical methods.