David Savageau and Geoffrey Loftus, the authors of Places Rated Almanac (published in 1997 by Macmillan) have ranked 325 metropolitan areas in the United States with consideration of the following aspects of life in each area: cost of living, transportation, jobs, education, climate, crime, arts, health, and recreation. The data are in the file P2_55.XLS. 

a. Generate scatterplots to discern the relationship between the metropolitan area’s overall score and each of these numerical factors.

b. Are the relationships revealed by the scatterplots consistent with your expectations? If not, can you explain any discrepancies between your findings and expectations?