A 2011 survey conducted by a local paper in Columbus, Ohio, asked voters, one week before election day, which candidate they would vote for as city attorney. The goal was to predict the outcome of the upcoming election. Thirty-seven percent of voters said they would vote for the Democratic candidate. On election day, forty-one percent actually voted for the Democratic candidate. The figure of thirty-seven percent is a ______.

Explanation: A statistic describes a sample. In this case, the sample would be those who responded to the survey. The population would be all individuals who actually vote on election day, because the goal of the study was to predict the results of the actual election. Thirty-seven percent describes a characteristic of the sample.