ShmoopTube

00:03

Here’s your shmoop du jour, brought to you by birth predictions.

00:06

For example, we totally predicted that you'd be born.

00:09

Yeah, we called it.

00:11

After what year in the graph is the scientist's model most accurate at predicting birth year?

00:16

And here are the potential answers...

00:20

Okay, so which graph is

00:22

hitting the nail on the head when it comes to birth year.

00:25

Figure 1 shows that the amount of carbon-14 (14C) in an individual's eye related to the

00:29

amount of 14C in the atmosphere at the time of that individual's birth.

00:33

That’s not the one we want at all.

00:35

So we should refer to figure 2, because the question is asking about predicting birth year.

00:40

Figure 2 just happens to be all about predictions.

00:43

The perfectly diagonal red line shows the ideal 1:1 ratio between the predicted and

00:47

actual years of birth. In other words, the dots would be on that red line if the scientists

00:53

were psychics and could predict the patients’ actual years of birth.

00:58

For this question, we’re interested in which red dots are closest to this red line.

01:03

After 1960, the dots seem to hug the line pretty closely,

01:07

but before 1960, they are relatively far away.

01:15

Guess the dots and the lines saw a couple’s therapist to work out their problems.

01:21

Since the dots are closest to the line only after 1960,

01:24

the model is most accurate at making predictions after 1960.

01:28

So our answer’s C.

Full Transcript