Question

ms. sutton recorded the word counts and scores of the top ten essays in a timed writing contest. the table shows her data. winning essay length essay rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 essay score 9.7 9.5 9.5 9.0 8.9 8.9 8.5 8.4 8.2 7.0 word count 324 352 337 318 299 304 290 291 278 250 how does the word count of an essay relate to its score in the contest? word count tends to decrease as the score decreases. word count tends to increase as the score decreases. word count tends to remain constant as the score decreases. word count has no apparent relationship to the score of the essay.

Explanation:

Examine the data in the table. As the essay score decreases from 9.7 to 7.0, the word - count values generally decrease from 324 to 250. For example, the highest - scoring essay (9.7) has a word count of 324, and the lowest - scoring essay (7.0) has a word count of 250.

Answer:

Word count tends to decrease as the score decreases.