Which statement best defines a hypothesis?

• A. A method of collecting or organizing data.
• B. A final, proven conclusion.
• C. A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
• D. A statistical test used to compare groups.

Answer: (C)

A hypothesis is an educated, testable guess about how something works, based on limited evidence, that serves as the starting point for investigation. It provides a proposed explanation or prediction that you can test through observation or experiments, and it’s provisional and falsifiable—you should be able to gather data that could either support or refute it, leading to revision if needed. This is what distinguishes a hypothesis from a final conclusion, which is reached after testing, or from data-collection methods and statistical tests, which are tools rather than a tentative explanation. So, describing a supposition or proposed explanation used as the starting point for further investigation best captures what a hypothesis is.