Select the correct answer. The owner of a sporting goods store gathered data about the numbers of men’s, women’s and children’s
bicycles sold each month. She used a graphing tool to organize the data in different scatter plots and found these lines of best fit: The relationship between the numbers of men’s, x, and women’s, y, bicycles sold is modeled by the equation y = 0.95x + 0.83, and the correlation coefficient for the data is 0.791. The relationship between the numbers of men’s, x, and children’s, y, bicycles sold is modeled by the equation y = 0.87x + 0.98, and the correlation coefficient for the data is 0.564. The relationship between the numbers of children’s, x, and women’s, y, bicycles sold is modeled by the equation y = 0.73x + 0.91, and the correlation coefficient for the data is 0.945. Which line of best fit can the store owner expect to produce the most reliable predictions?
A. the line modeling the numbers of men’s and women’s bicycles sold
B. the line modeling the numbers of men’s and children’s bicycles sold
C. the line modeling the numbers of children’s and women’s bicycles sold D. All three lines will give equally reliable predictions.
