Question

payton collected data to show the relationship between the number of hours he practices and the number of errors he makes when playing a new piece of music. the table shows his data. practice makes better

number of hours	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
number of errors	36	34	30	31	23	16	11	5

which is the approximate slope of the line of best fit for the data? -5.5 -4.5 -2.0 -1.0

Explanation:

Step1: Recall slope formula

The formula for the slope $m$ of the line of best - fit using two points $(x_1,y_1)$ and $(x_2,y_2)$ is $m=\frac{y_2 - y_1}{x_2 - x_1}$. We can choose two points from the data. Let's take the first point $(x_1,y_1)=(1,36)$ and the last point $(x_2,y_2)=(8,5)$.

Step2: Substitute values into formula

Substitute $x_1 = 1,y_1 = 36,x_2 = 8,y_2 = 5$ into the slope formula:

$$m=\frac{5 - 36}{8 - 1}=\frac{- 31}{7}\approx - 4.43\approx - 4.5$$

Answer:

-4.5