9. Hypothesis Testing for One Sample

Credit ScoresA Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) score is used by credit agencies (such as mortgage companies and banks) to assess the creditworthiness of individuals. Values range from 300 to 850, with a FICO score over 700 considered to be a quality credit risk. According to Fair Isaac Corporation, the mean FICO score is 703.5. A credit analyst wondered whether high-income individuals (incomes in excess of \$100,000 per year) had higher credit scores. He obtained a random sample of 40 high-income individuals and found the sample mean credit score to be 714.2 with a standard deviation of 83.2. Conduct the appropriate test to determine if high-income individuals have higher FICO scores at the α = 0.05 level of significance.

Testing Hypotheses

In Exercises 13–24, assume that a simple random sample has been selected and test the given claim. Unless specified by your instructor, use either the P-value method or the critical value method for testing hypotheses. Identify the null and alternative hypotheses, test statistic, P-value (or range of P-values), or critical value(s), and state the final conclusion that addresses the original claim.

Systolic Blood Pressure Systolic blood pressure levels above 120 mm Hg are considered to be high. For the 300 systolic blood pressure levels listed in Data Set 1 “Body Data” from Appendix B, the mean is 122.96000 mm Hg and the standard deviation is 15.85169 mm Hg. Use a 0.01 significance level to test the claim that the sample is from a population with a mean greater than 120 mm Hg.

A simple random sample of size n = 15 is drawn from a population that is normally distributed. The sample variance is found to be 23.8. Determine whether the population variance is less than 25 at the α = 0.01 level of significance.

SAT Verbal ScoresDo students who learned English and another language simultaneously score worse on the SAT Critical Reading exam than the general population of test takers? The mean score among all test takers on the SAT Critical Reading exam is 501. A random sample of 100 test takers who learned English and another language simultaneously had a mean SAT Critical Reading score of 485 with a standard deviation of 116. Do these results suggest that students who learn English as well as another language simultaneously score worse on the SAT Critical Reading exam?

a. State the appropriate null and alternative hypotheses.

Hypothesis Testing Using Rejection Region(s) In Exercises 39–44, (a) identify the claim and state H0 and Ha, (b) find the critical value(s) and identify the rejection region(s), (c) find the standardized test statistic z, (d) decide whether to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis, and (e) interpret the decision in the context of the original claim.

Light Bulbs A light bulb manufacturer guarantees that the mean life of a certain type of light bulb is at least 750 hours. A random sample of 25 light bulbs has a mean life of 745 hours. Assume the population is normally distributed and the population standard deviation is 60 hours. At alpha= 0.02, do you have enough evidence to reject the manufacturer’s claim?

A nutritionist believes the average daily protein intake for adults is $50g$. A random sample of $37$ adults has a sample mean of $51g$ sample standard deviation of $6g$. Use $\alpha =0.05$ to test whether the true mean protein intake differs from $50$ grams.

In Exercises 5–16, use the listed paired sample data, and assume that the samples are simple random samples and that the differences have a distribution that is approximately normal.

Do Men Talk Less than Women? Listed below are word counts of males and females in couple relationships (from Data Set 14 “Word Counts” in Appendix B).

a. Use a 0.05 significance level to test the claim that men talk less than women.

Hypothesis Testing Using Rejection Regions In Exercises 19–26, (a) identify the claim and state H0 and Ha, (b) find the critical value(s) and identify the rejection region(s), (c) find the standardized test statistic t, (d) decide whether to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis, and (e) interpret the decision in the context of the original claim. Assume the population is normally distributed.

Lead Levels As part of your work for an environmental awareness group, you want to test a claim that the mean amount of lead in the air in U.S. cities is less than 0.032 microgram per cubic meter. You find that the mean amount of lead in the air for a random sample of 56 U.S. cities is 0.021 microgram per cubic meter and the standard deviation is 0.034 microgram per cubic meter. At α=0.01, can you support the claim?

Finding P-values

In Exercises 5–8, either use technology to find the P-value or use Table A-3 to find a range of values for the P-value. Based on the result, what is the final conclusion?

Weights of Quarters The claim is that weights (grams) of quarters made after 1964 have a mean equal to 5.670 g as required by mint specifications. The sample size is and the test statistic is t = -3.135.

Quality ControlSuppose the mean wait-time for a telephone reservation agent at a large airline is 43 seconds. A manager with the airline is concerned that business may be lost due to customers having to wait too long for an agent. To address this concern, the manager develops new airline reservation policies that are intended to reduce the amount of time an agent needs to spend with each customer. A random sample of 250 customers results in a sample mean wait-time of 42.3 seconds with a standard deviation of 4.2 seconds. Using an α = 0.05 level of significance, do you believe the new policies were effective? Do you think the results have any practical significance?

Test the claim about the population mean $\mu$ at the given level of significance. Assume the population is normally distributed. Find the $P$-value and determine whether you should reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis.

Claim: $\mu \ne 1020$, $\alpha =0.01$, $\sigma =85$

Sample: $\bar{x}=990$, $n=40$

Test the claim about the population mean $\mu$ at the given level of significance. Assume the population is normally distributed. Find the $P$-value and determine whether you should reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis.

Claim: $\mu >52$, $\alpha =0.10$

Sample: $\bar{x}=53.1$, $s=4.7$, $n=20$

Hypothesis Test with Known σ

a. How do the results from Example 1 in this section change if σ is known to be 1.99240984 g? Does the knowledge of σ have much of an effect on the results of this hypothesis test?

"InfidelityAccording to menstuff.org, 22% of married men have “strayed” at least once during their married lives.

a. Describe how you might go about administering a survey to assess the accuracy of this statement.

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In Exercises 27 and 28, (a) identify the claim and state H0 and Ha, (b) find the critical value(s) and identify the rejection region(s), (c) find the standardized test statistic z, (d) decide whether to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis, and (e) interpret the decision in the context of the original claim.

A substance abuse counselor claims that the mean annual drug overdose death rate for the 50 states is at least 25 deaths per 100,000 people. In a random sample of 30 states, the mean annual drug overdose rate is 22.48 per 100,000 people. Assume the population standard deviation is 10.69 deaths per 100,000. At α=0.01, is there enough evidence to reject the claim?