What does cumulative frequency represent?

Cumulative frequency represents the running total of frequencies within certain ranges. This concept is essential in statistics as it allows for the understanding of how the overall data is accumulated over intervals. When you calculate cumulative frequency, you succinctly summarize the data in a way that shows not just the counts for each category, but also how they add up as you move through the dataset.

For example, if you have a frequency distribution of students' test scores grouped into ranges (e.g., 0-10, 11-20, etc.), the cumulative frequency for the range 0-10 would just be the frequency in that range, while the cumulative frequency for the range 11-20 would be the sum of the frequency in the 0-10 range plus the frequency in the 11-20 range, and so forth. This provides insight into the proportion of data that falls below certain thresholds, which can be particularly useful for interpreting distribution characteristics such as percentiles or medians.

Understanding cumulative frequency is key to analyzing data trends and making data-driven decisions, which is why option C accurately captures its meaning.