The correlation coefficient has to do with how well the points line up. If they are all on a line with positive slope, the correlation coefficient is 1. If that line has negative slope, the correlation coefficient is -1.
When the points are not on a line, the magnitude of the correlation coefficient is related to how "scattered" the points are. Completely random points that lie on no discernible line have a correlation coefficient of 0.
The given points lie near a line with positive slope, so the correlation coefficient is near 1. The most appropriate choice here is r = 1.
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The computed value of the correlation coefficient for this data is 0.968.
