Course Title: Business Statistics II

Assignment #3
Hypothesis Testing for Single Populations
Exercise #1

Because of the enormity of the viewing audience, firms that advertise during the Super Bowl create
special commercials that tend to be quite entertaining. Thirty-second commercials cost several million
dollars during the Super Bowl game. A random sample of people who watched the game was asked how
many commercials they watched in their entirety. The sample size is equal to 116. Can we infer that the
mean number of commercials watched is greater than 15? (at the 5% significance level)

Table 1 : Descriptive Statistics of Commercials

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

15,27
Commercials 116 8 37 5,723
Valid N (listwise) 116

Exercise #2

Has the recent drop in airplane passengers resulted in better on-time performance? Before the recent
economic downturn, one airline baggaged that 92% of its flights were on time. A random sample of 165
flights completed this year reveals that 153 were on time. Can we conclude at the 5% significance level
that the airline’s on-time performance has improved?

Exercise #3

A federal agency responsible for enforcing laws governing weights and measures routinely inspects
packages to determine whether the weight of the contents is at least as great as that advertised on the
package. A random sample of 18 containers whose packaging states that the contents weight 8 ounces
was drawn. The results are reported in Table 2. Can we conclude at the 1% significance level that on
average the containers are mislabeled? (Hint. Assume that the random variable is normally distributed)

1
 Table 2 : Descriptive Statistics of Weights

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

7,8 8,1 7,914 ,0847

Weights
18
Valid N (listwise) 18

Exercise #4

When an election for political office takes place, the television networks cancel regular programming
and instead provide election coverage. When the ballots are counted, the results are reported. However,
for important offices such as president or senator in large states, the networks actively compute to see
which will be the first to predict a winner. This is done through exit polls, where in a random sample of
voters who exit the polling booth is asked for whom they voted. From the data, the sample proportion
of voters supporting the candidates is computed. A statistical technique is applied to determine whether
there is enough evidence to infer that the leading candidate will garner enough votes to win.

Suppose that in the exit poll from the state of Florida during the 2000 year elections, the pollsters
recorded only the voters of the two candidates who had any chance of winning. Democrat Albert Gore
(code = 1) and the republican George W. Bush (code = 2). Table 3 presents the results. The polls close
at 8:00 P. M. A candidate is declared a winner if the proportion of votes in the entire state for him is
larger than 50%. Can the networks conclude from these data that the Republican candidate will win the
state? (Hint. Propose the adequate hypothesis test using a confidence level α equal to 0.05) Table 3 :
Votes
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent

358 46,8 46,8 46,8

Albert Gore
George W. Bush 407 53,2 53,2 100,0

Valid Total 765 100,0 100,0