(quadratic). Population tends to grow exponentially, at least for a while. Even though you could find an
LSRL for nonlinear data, it makes no sense to do so. The AP Statistics course deals only with two-
variable data that can be modeled by a line OR nonlinear two-variable data that can be transformed in
such a way that the transformed data can be modeled by a line.
example: The number of a certain type of bacteria present (in thousands) after a certain number of
hours is given in the following chart:What would be the predicted quantity of bacteria after 3.75 hours?
solution: A scatterplot of the data and a residual plot [for = a + b (Hour )] shows that a
line is not a good model for this data:Now, take ln (Number ) to produce the following data: