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
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:

To determine the relationship, we analyze the data: as essay scores decrease (from 9.7 to 7.0), word counts generally decrease (from 324 to 250). For example, higher scores (like 9.7, 9.5) have higher word counts (324, 352, 337), and lower scores (like 8.2, 7.0) have lower word counts (278, 250). This shows a trend where word count decreases as score decreases.

Answer:

A. Word count tends to decrease as the score decreases.