Question

select the correct answer. the developer of a new plant fertilizer gathered data about the quantity of fertilizer applied to a lemon tree and the number of lemons it produced. he used a graphing tool to organize the data in a scatter - plot and find the line of best fit. he found that the relationship between grams of fertilizer, x, and the number of lemons, y, is modeled by the equation y = 0.316x + 12.214, and the correlation coefficient for the data is 0.948. could this line of best fit be used to make reliable predictions? a. no, because the slope of the line is closer to 0 than to 1, which indicates a weak association between the variables. b. no, because the correlation coefficient is closer to 1 than to 0, which indicates a weak association between the variables. c. yes, because the slope of the line is closer to 0 than to 1, which indicates a strong association between the variables. d. yes, because the correlation coefficient is closer to 1 than to 0, which indicates a strong association between the variables.

Explanation:

The correlation coefficient (r = 0.948) determines the strength of the linear - relationship between two variables. A value of r close to 1 indicates a strong positive linear association. When there is a strong association, the line of best - fit can be used to make reliable predictions. The slope of the line is not the factor to determine the reliability of predictions in terms of the strength of the relationship.

Answer:

D. Yes, because the correlation coefficient is closer to 1 than to 0, which indicates a strong association between the variables