A Study of Home Heating Costs Collects Data on the Size

question 22

Multiple Choice

A study of home heating costs collects data on the size of houses and the monthly cost to heat the houses with natural gas. Here are the data:

A friend tells you that the correlation for the data is r = 0.99984. You conclude from this number that

• A) larger houses cost more to heat than smaller houses, and the relationship is almost perfectly straight.
• B) smaller houses cost more to heat than larger houses, and the relationship is almost perfectly straight.
• C) larger houses cost more to heat than smaller houses, but the relationship is not very strong.
• D) smaller houses cost more to heat than larger houses, but the relationship is not very strong.
• E) your friend made a mistake, because the value of r is impossible.