Tony collected data on the years of employment and the annual salaries of the salespeople at Company Z. He made a scatterplot and drew a trend line that approximated the line of best fit for the data, as shown below. What does the slope mean in this situation?

Question

A. The average salary of salespeople at Company Z is $3,000 per year of employment.
B. The average salary of salespeople at Company Z is $5,000 per year of employment.
C. The average salary of salespeople at Company Z increases by $3,000 for each additional year of employment.
D. The average salary of salespeople at Company Z increases by $5,000 for each additional year of employment.

Quizzma Team · Answer

The correct answer is C. The average salary of salespeople at Company Z increases by $3,000 for each additional year of employment. Explanation: The slope of the trend line in a scatterplot represents the change in the dependent variable (annual salary) for each one-unit increase in the independent variable (years of employment). If the slope is $3,000, this means that for each additional year of employment, the average salary of the salespeople increases by $3,000.

Tony collected data on the years of employment and the annual salaries of the salespeople at Company Z. He made a scatterplot and drew a trend line that approximated the line of best fit for the data, as shown below. What does the slope mean in this situation?

1 Answer