Question

(a) a phone company determined that an increase in income does not indicate a change in phone usage. what does the analysis show?
○ there is no correlation between income and phone usage.
○ there is a correlation between income and phone usage. there may or may not be causation. further studies would have to be done to determine this.
○ there is a correlation between income and phone usage. there is probably also causation. this is because there is likely an increase in phone usage with an increase in income.

(b) a music store conducted a survey. it showed that the number of cds purchased by a shopper decreases with the number of songs he downloaded. what can we likely say?
○ there is no correlation between number of cds purchased and number of songs downloaded.
○ there is a correlation between number of cds purchased and number of songs downloaded. however, there is no causation. this is because there is a decrease in the number of cds purchased with an increase in the number of songs downloaded.
○ there is a correlation between number of cds purchased and number of songs downloaded. there may or may not be causation. further studies would have to be done to determine this.

(c) ahmad compared the statistics from his team’s baseball season. he determined that having fewer hits did not imply that a player caught more or fewer balls. what should he conclude?
○ there is no correlation between number of hits and number of balls caught.
○ there is no correlation between number of hits and number of balls caught. there may or may not be causation. further studies would have to be done to determine this.
○ there is a correlation between number of hits and number of balls caught. however, there is no causation. this is because there is probably a...

Explanation:

(a) The analysis found income increase does not link to phone usage change, meaning no correlation exists between the two variables.
(b) The survey shows CDs purchased decrease as downloaded songs rise, which is a negative correlation. Correlation does not equal causation, so further study is needed to confirm causation.
(c) The analysis found fewer hits do not relate to more/less balls caught, meaning no correlation between the two variables.

Answer:

(a) There is no correlation between income and phone usage.
(b) There is a correlation between number of CDs purchased and number of songs downloaded. There may or may not be causation. Further studies would have to be done to determine this.
(c) There is no correlation between number of hits and number of balls caught.