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"Over the course of several days, Olivia records the number of math homework problems she has to complete per day and the time, in hours, that it takes her to complete these problems. She creates a scatter plot of her data and calculates the correlation coefficient to be 0.52. Based on this result, which of the following statements are true?

A. There is a strong positive correlation between the number of math homework problems and the time it takes Olivia to complete them.
B. There is a weak positive correlation between the number of math homework problems and the time it takes Olivia to complete them.
C. There is a strong negative correlation between the number of math homework problems and the time it takes Olivia to complete them.
D. There is no correlation between the number of math homework problems and the time it takes Olivia to complete them.

1 Answer

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Final answer:

Olivia's data showing a correlation coefficient of 0.52 indicates a weak positive correlation between the number of math homework problems and the time it takes to complete them, making statement B correct.

Step-by-step explanation:

The correlation coefficient that Olivia calculated for her math homework problems is 0.52. This number falls between 0 and 1, indicating that there is a positive correlation between the number of math homework problems and the time it takes to complete them. However, since the coefficient is closer to 0 than to 1, we can conclude that it is a weak positive correlation. This means that, generally, as the number of math problems increases, so does the time it takes to complete them, but the relationship isn't strong enough to be considered highly predictive.

Therefore, the statement B is true: There is a weak positive correlation between the number of math homework problems and the time it takes Olivia to complete them. The other statements are false: Statement A is incorrect because the correlation is not strong enough; Statement C is incorrect because the correlation is positive, not negative; and Statement D is incorrect because a correlation coefficient of 0.52 indicates that there is indeed some correlation, albeit a weak one.

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