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Short Questions On Decision Tree

The document discusses decision trees in machine learning, highlighting their purpose in modeling decisions for classification and regression tasks. It explains key concepts such as node splitting criteria (Gini impurity and Information Gain), leaf nodes, overfitting, and methods to prevent overfitting. Additionally, it compares Gini impurity and entropy as metrics for measuring split quality.

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23 views2 pages

Short Questions On Decision Tree

The document discusses decision trees in machine learning, highlighting their purpose in modeling decisions for classification and regression tasks. It explains key concepts such as node splitting criteria (Gini impurity and Information Gain), leaf nodes, overfitting, and methods to prevent overfitting. Additionally, it compares Gini impurity and entropy as metrics for measuring split quality.

Uploaded by

solocarry0900
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SHORT QUESTIONS ON DECISION TREE

1. What is the main purpose of a decision tree in machine learning?


A decision tree is used to model decisions and their possible outcomes in a structured
way. It helps in both classification and regression tasks by breaking down a dataset into
smaller subsets while forming a tree structure, where each internal node represents a test
on a feature, and each leaf node represents a final decision or prediction.

2. What criterion is commonly used to split nodes in a decision tree?


The most common criteria for splitting nodes are Gini impurity and Information Gain
(based on entropy). These metrics measure how well a split separates the data into
classes, aiming to make each group as "pure" as possible.

3. What is a leaf node in a decision tree?


A leaf node, also called a terminal node, is the end point of a decision path in the tree. It
represents the final output or decision of the model—either a predicted class (in
classification) or a value (in regression).

4. What is overfitting in the context of decision trees?


Overfitting occurs when a decision tree learns the training data too well, including noise
and outliers. This leads to a complex tree that performs very well on the training data but
poorly on unseen (test) data because it fails to generalize.

5. How can you prevent a decision tree from overfitting?


Overfitting can be prevented by techniques like pruning (removing unnecessary
branches), setting a maximum depth, limiting the minimum number of samples per
leaf or split, or using ensemble methods like Random Forests.

6. Is a decision tree suitable for both classification and regression?


Yes, decision trees can be used for both. In classification, the tree predicts a category or
class label. In regression, it predicts a continuous numeric value by averaging outcomes
in the leaf nodes.
7. What is the difference between Gini impurity and entropy?
Both are used to measure the quality of a split. Entropy is based on information theory
and measures the level of disorder or unpredictability, while Gini impurity measures the
frequency at which a randomly chosen element would be incorrectly classified. Gini is
often faster to compute and commonly used in practice.

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