Question

A college professor reports that students who finish exams early tend to get better grades than students who hold on to exams until the last possible moment. The correlation between exam score and amount of time spent on the exam is an example of _____.

(A) a positive correlation.
(B) a negative correlation.
(C) a correlation near zero.
(D) a correlation near one.

Answer 1

(B) a negative correlation.

Explanation:

If students who finish exams early tend to get better grades than students who hold on to exams until the last possible moment implies that if we collect data about time to finish an exam and the associated grade, then, for instance, for two diffent times
`t_(1) < t_(2)` the corresponding grades
`g_(1)` and
`g_(2)` will satisty
`g_(1) > g_(2)` with high probability. This is a clear example of a negative correlation.