Detailed Discussion of the Example

The first thing we do, before even answering the specific questions, is look at the table to orient ourselves to the information being given:

Table Title--this is a table showing the relationship of ticket price to attendance at First Union University. Column Headings--The table has find two columns. Ticket Price, given in dollars, and Attendance given in thousands.

The Relationship Between Ticket Prices and Attendance at First Union University Ticket Prices (dollars) Attendance (thousands) 0 20 5 16 10 12 15 9 20 5 25 0

Now let's look at the specific questions.

1. What is the attendance when the ticket price is $15 dollars?
   The answer is 9 thousand.

   First, find the row where the ticket price is $15. This is the forth row (Highlighted in yellow). Second, look across to the attendance column and see that 9 thousand people attend. Third, notice that we report the attendance in thousands. We know we need to do this because the column label reports attendance in thousands.

   The Relationship Between Ticket Prices and Attendance at First Union University Ticket Prices (dollars) Attendance (thousands) 0 20 5 16 10 12 15 9 20 5 25 0

2. What is the relationship between ticket price and attendance?
   As ticket price increases, attendance decreases. The point where no one will buy a ticket is at a price of $25.

   For this question we need to look at the trends in both columns.

   In the ticket price column, the price increases as we move down the column. 1st Row: Free 2nd Row: $5. 6th Row: $25.

   Ticket Prices (dollars) Attendance (thousands) 0 20 5 16 10 12 15 9 20 5 25 0

   In the attendance column, the number decreases as we move down the table. 1st Row: 20 2nd Row: 16 6th Row: No one attends

   
   So we can see that as the price of tickets increases, the number of people who will attend games decreases. This type of relationship is called a inverse relationships (as one goes up, the other comes down).

3. What is the optimal ticket price? Give a reason for your answer.
   The optimal ticket price is $15. At a ticket price of $15, the money taken in from ticket sales $135 thousand, which is the greatest amount.

   We need to determine what would make ticket sales optimal. In this case it would be the point at which money earned from ticket sales was at its greatest point. To answer this question, we can to use information already given to find out the money earned from ticket sales:

   Ticket Price x Attendance = Money Earned from Sales
   

Here we can see we need to add a column to the table that provides this new information.

Ticket Prices (dollars)	Attendance (thousands)	Money Earned from Sales (thousands of dollars)
0	20	0
5	16	80
10	12	120
15	9	135
20	5	100
25	0	0

Here we can see the maximum earned in sales is when the price of a ticket is $15.

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