Computer Concept Courses (CCC) Practice Test 2026 - Free Practice Questions and Study Guide

The term that refers to data before it has been processed into information is "data." In the context of computer science and information processing, data represents raw facts, figures, or details that have not yet been organized or structured to reveal meaning. Processing this data transforms it into information, which is useful and informative.

For instance, a list of numbers represents data until you perform calculations or analyses to extract meaningful insights from it. This distinction is crucial in understanding how information systems work – they take data as input and convert it into processed information that users can interpret and use for decision-making. The other terms pertain to different stages or aspects of data handling, but "data" itself explicitly denotes the unprocessed facts or figures.