The American Bankruptcy Institute and the National Bankruptcy Research Center monitor the number of consumer bankruptcy filings each month. The table on the next page lists the number of bankruptcy filings for each of the first 10 months of a recent year.
a. Explain why the data in the table represent time series data.
b. Construct a time series plot for the monthly number of bankruptcy filings.
c. Do you detect a trend in the time series plot? Explain.

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Month Number of bankruptcy filings January February March April May June July August September October 66,050 76,120 86,165 92.291 91.214 82.770 94,124 96,413 88,663 106.266