Suppose you were to create a scatter plot of outside temperature and amount of heating bill. Would you expect to see a positive, negative, or no relationship between the two variables. Explain your answer.

When outside temperature falls, people generally use more heat, so the heating bill tends to rise. As one variable decreases while the other increases, the relationship is negative. Therefore, the best answer is “negative relationship; as the outside temperature decreases, the amount of the heating bill increases.”

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