Executives at A+ Mart grocery stores would like to expand to the rapidly growing town of Somerville. Company analysts are trying to estimate future demand for grocery stores in Somerville by looking at data from nearby cities.

Question

The analysts note the population of nearby cities (in thousands), x, and compare it to the number of grocery stores in each city, y.
The least squares regression line of this data set is:
y= 0.159x + 3.824

How many grocery stores does this line predict for a city with 485 thousand people?
Round your answer to the nearest integer.
_______ grocery stores

Answer 1

The predicted number of grocery stores for a city with 485 thousand people can be found by plugging x=485 into the equation y= 0.159x + 3.824.

y = 0.159(485) + 3.824
y = 77.115 + 3.824
y = 80.939

Rounding to the nearest integer, the predicted number of grocery stores for a city with 485 thousand people is 81 grocery stores.