Question

Roller Coaster
Speed (mph)
Ranking (1-10)
Formula Rossa
149
8
Kingda Ka
128
7
Steel Dragon 2000
95
5
Millennium Force
93
9
Fury 325
95
10
Top Thrill 2
120
7
Red Force
112
6
Dodonpa
107
6
Silver Star
80
5
Intimidator 305
90
9










Write a paragraph that revises, or accepts and rejects, your hypothesis. You must use complete sentences, correct grammar, and punctuation. Here is an example of what this would look like for Mr. Osborn's fictional data from the example table and graph.

When I graphed my rankings versus the wait time for each coaster, there did not appear to be any pattern in the data. To confirm this, I had the spreadsheet add a trendline to the graph. This trendline did show a tiny positive correlation, but the correlation coefficient was below 0.7, so there is no significant correlation in the data. This means the hypothesis that the wait time for a roller coaster predicts how good the roller coaster is has to be rejected, unless further research can find a pattern not present in this data.

Answer 1

After analyzing the data on roller coasters, I initially hypothesized that higher speeds would correlate with higher rankings. However, upon reviewing the rankings and speeds, it is clear that this is not entirely the case. For example, Formula Rossa, the fastest coaster at 149 mph, is ranked 8th, while Fury 325 and Millennium Force, both with a speed of 95 mph, are ranked 10th and 9th, respectively. Additionally, Kingda Ka, which has a speed of 128 mph, is ranked 7th, indicating that speed does not directly equate to a top ranking. The data shows that multiple coasters with varying speeds—like Intimidator 305 (90 mph) ranked 9th and Steel Dragon 2000 (95 mph) ranked 5th—further confirm that speed is not the sole indicator of a coaster’s quality. Therefore, I must reject my original hypothesis that higher speeds predict better rankings, unless future studies highlight other influencing factors that align more closely with coaster rankings.