A model trained on examples paired with known categories and then used to assign categories to new examples is performing supervised classification.
3 Classification Fundamentals Online Quiz Questions
Use this free practice quiz with 20 questions to review 3 Classification Fundamentals, test your knowledge, and prepare for your next test or exam.
A classifier produces scores for its categories. Those scores alone must be the final predicted classes; a decision rule cannot be used to convert them into class predictions.
- A
True
- B
False
A classifier assigns each animal photo to one of four categories: cat, dog, bird, or rabbit. What kind of classification task is this?
- A
Binary classification
- B
Multiclass classification
- C
Regression
- D
Unsupervised clustering
An email classifier uses the message text, sender, and number of links to predict whether an email is spam. What are those three pieces of input information called?
- A
Labels
- B
Features
- C
Predictions
- D
Test outcomes
For a spam classifier, spam is the positive class. An email labeled not spam is predicted to be spam. What confusion-matrix outcome is this?
- A
True positive
- B
False negative
- C
False positive
- D
True negative
A screening classifier is used in a situation where missing positive cases is especially costly. Select all statements that are justified when choosing and interpreting a metric.
- A
Prioritize recall because missing positive cases is especially costly.
- B
Prioritize precision because it measures the fraction of actual positives identified.
- C
Prioritize accuracy because it guarantees equal performance on each class.
- D
A high recall means the classifier misses fewer actual positive cases.
What is the name of the table that organizes a binary classifier's true positive, false positive, true negative, and false negative counts?
A model is given an input that reveals the correct category, even though that information would not be available when making real predictions. What is this problem called?
In a labeled training example, the are used to make a prediction, while the is the correct category the model is meant to predict.
A team wants to estimate how well a classifier will perform on examples it has not learned from. Which evaluation plan best supports that goal?
- A
Fit the model on all examples, then report its performance on those same examples.
- B
Use the test set repeatedly to choose settings, then report the best result from it.
- C
Use training data to fit the model, reserve any validation data for model selection, and use the held-back test set for final evaluation.
- D
Use only examples that are difficult for the model as the test set.
A team is preparing training, validation, and test sets for a classification project. Select all sound practices that are supported by the material.
- A
If appropriate, use stratification to help preserve class proportions across sets.
- B
Always split randomly, even when examples have time order or belong to related groups.
- C
When time order or related groups matter, consider a split that respects that structure.
- D
Keep the test set for final evaluation rather than repeatedly using it to make modeling decisions.
Among examples predicted positive, the fraction that truly are positive is . Among actual positive examples, the fraction correctly identified is .
A classifier has 9 true positives and 3 false positives. What is its precision as a percentage, rounded to the nearest whole percentage point?
A dataset contains records in time order, and some records belong to related groups. Describe how you would separate data for training and evaluation, and explain how you would use any validation set and the test set.
A model is trained to sort wildlife photos into cat, dog, or bird categories. What kind of classification task is this?
- A
Binary classification
- B
Multiclass classification
- C
Regression
- D
Unsupervised learning
An email model uses the message text and sender to predict whether an email is spam. In a labeled training example, what is the term for the correct category—such as “spam” or “not spam”—that the model is meant to predict?
A hospital trains a model to predict whether a patient will be readmitted. One input feature is a billing code entered only after the readmission occurs. What is the main problem with using this feature?
- A
It is a useful feature because it is strongly related to the label.
- B
It belongs only in the test set.
- C
It creates data leakage because it is unavailable when the prediction is made.
- D
It changes the task from classification to regression.
True or false: A classifier's score on its training examples can overstate how well it will perform on new examples because it may have memorized the training data.
- A
True
- B
False
A team has training, validation, and test sets. It wants to compare model settings and then estimate performance as fairly as possible. Which approach best uses the validation and test sets?
- A
Use the validation set to compare settings, then reserve the test set for a final evaluation.
- B
Use the test set repeatedly to choose settings, then report the best test score.
- C
Combine the validation and test sets and use the combined data to select the model.
- D
Use only the training set to compare models and treat its score as the final evaluation.
A classifier will be used to predict outcomes for future transactions, and the available examples are ordered by time. Which split strategy is most appropriate to consider?
- A
Shuffle all examples randomly, regardless of when they occurred.
- B
Put all examples from the latest time period in the training set and earlier ones in the test set.
- C
Choose the split that gives the same number of examples in each set, even if time order is mixed.
- D
Use a split that respects time order, so the evaluation reflects prediction on later examples.