Which of the following statements best describes why creating a hypothesis is an important step in a scientific investigation? *

A. The hypothesis is actually the first step in the scientific method.
B. The hypothesis guides the researcher towards the results of the experiment.
C. The hypothesis provides the steps needed to analyze the data to reach conclusions,
D. The hypothesis provides a prediction about what might happen during the experiment
based on prior research.
Students are studying the effects of beach pollution by counting