Question

functions and lines
identifying correlation and causation
answer the questions below.
(a) a flute instructor examined student progress. she found that playing a longer song does not necessarily mean that a student will have more or fewer wrong notes. what can she conclude?
there is no correlation between song length and number of wrong notes.
there is a correlation between song length and number of wrong notes.
there is a correlation between song length and number of wrong notes. there may or may not be causation. further studies would have to be done to determine this.
there is a correlation between number of wrong notes with and number of wrong notes. there is probably also causation. this is because there is likely an increase in the number of wrong notes with an increase in the song length.
(b) an environmental study was conducted. it reported that, for a park, having more visitors indicates having a larger number of trees. what can be determined?
there is no correlation between number of visitors and number of trees.
there is a correlation between number of visitors and number of trees.
there is a correlation between number of visitors and number of trees. however, there is no causation. this is because there is an increase in the number of trees with an increase in the number of visitors.
there is a correlation between number of visitors and number of trees. there may or may not be causation. further studies would have to be done to determine this.

Explanation:

(a) Since playing a longer song does not necessarily mean more or fewer wrong notes, there is no correlation.
(b) Just because more visitors in a park indicates a larger number of trees doesn't mean one causes the other. There may be an underlying factor or it could be coincidental, so we can only say there is a correlation and further study is needed to determine causation.

Answer:

(a) There is no correlation between song length and number of wrong notes.
(b) There is a correlation between number of visitors and number of trees. There may or may not be causation. Further studies would have to be done to determine this.