RJC 08

From records, a shot putter has an average throwing distance of 8.92 metres. His
coach taught him a new technique and after three months of training, his
distance, in metres, on 10 different occasions is as follows.

9.11 8.89 9.02 9.08 9.10 8.90 9.05 8.95 8.87 8.86

The coach is interested to find out if the shot putter has improved with the
new technique.

(i) State, giving your reasons, whether a z-test or t-test should be used. [2]

(ii) Carry out the test in (i) at the 5% significance level, stating any
assumption necessary for validity. [5]

A stationery retailer supplies pens to offices. In order to encourage customers to

buy in bulk, the stationery retailer came up with the following price scheme.

Number of pens 5 10 20 40 80 160

ordered, x
Unit price in dollar, y 1.50 1.20 1.10 0.99 0.90 0.80

(i) Calculate the value of the product moment correlation coefficient. [1]

(ii) Give a sketch of the scatter diagram for the data and hence comment
on the value of the product moment correlation coefficient found in (i). [3]

(iii) State, with a reason, which model of the form y = a + bw is appropriate,

where a and b are constants, b > 0 and w is as follows.

A: w = x 2 ,
1
B: w = ,
x
C: w = ln x . [2]

Using the appropriate model selected above, find

(iv) the value of the product moment correlation coefficient, [1]

(v) the equation of the regression line of y on w, and hence obtain an

estimate of the number of pens ordered when a unit price of $1.40 is
quoted.
Comment on the reliability of your answer. [3]
HCI 08

The past records of a supermarket show that its customers spend an average of
$55 per visit at this store. To encourage customers to spend more money at the
store, the management of the store initiated a promotional campaign where each
customer will receive a bonus stamp for every $30 spent and these bonus
stamps can be used to redeem products at the store.

A week after the start of the campaign, the manager of the store took a sample of
15 customers who visited the store. The amount of money (in dollars) spent by
these customers, x, at this supermarket during their visits are summarized by
Σ x = 1014 Σ x2 = 83568

Assume that the money spent by all customers at this supermarket follows a
normal distribution. Test, at the 10 % level of significance, whether the
promotional campaign was successful in encouraging customers to spend more
money at the store. [6]

A teacher decided to investigate the association between students’ performances

in Mathematics and Physics. She selected 5 students at random and recorded
their scores, x and y, in Mathematics and Physics tests respectively. She found
that, for this set of data,
the equation of the regression line of y on x was y = 18.5 + 0.1x and
the equation of the regression line of x on y was x = 16.6 + 0.4y.

(i) Show that Σ x= 125 and Σ y=105. [3]

It is given that Σ x2 = 3215; Σ y2 = 2227.5; Σxy = 2634.

(ii) Calculate the product moment correlation coefficient for the data. [1]

(iii) The Physics score of a sixth student was mislaid but his Mathematics
score was known to be 26.
Use the appropriate line of regression to estimate this student’s Physics
score, and give a reason for the use of the chosen equation. [2]
Comment on the reliability of your estimate. [1]
NJC08

Yau Yan slimming centre offers a particular slimming package for ladies. Based
on past records, the mean weight of a lady after treatment was 50 kg.
In January 2008, a sample of 20 customers was randomly chosen and the weight,
x kg, of each customer after treatment was recorded. The data were summarized
by Σ (x – 50) = 54 Σ (x – 50)2 = 1226

(i) Find the unbiased estimate of the population variance. [1]

(ii) The centre manager claimed that the mean weight after treatment had
changed. Test the manager’s claim at 10% level of significance.
Explain, in context of the question, the meaning of “10% level of
significance”. [5]
In June 2008, the centre manager found that the standard deviation of the weight
of a customer after treatment was 6 kg.
(iii) She analyzed another random sample of 20 and when a test was
conducted at 5% level of significance, there was sufficient evidence to justify that
the weight after treatment had reduced. Find an estimate of the maximum total
weight of this sample. Give your answer to the nearest integer. [3]

After a major renovation at the computer-mart Sim Lum Square, its manager
Keith carried out a study to investigate the relationship between the renovation
cost of the shops and their sales figures in the first six months after re-opening.
The data below were collected from eight randomly chosen shops, in thousands
of dollars.

Shop No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Renovation cost, 19.5 23 28.1 31.6 35 38.1 46.5 49.2
X (in thousands
of dollars)
Sales figure, Y (in 55.5 a 77.2 78.7 79 88 73.4 80
thousands of
dollars)

(i) Keith found the least square regression line of the above data is
y = 52.244 + bx. It was known that this line and the line of x on y both pass
through the point (33.9, 74.3). Find the value of b to 5 significant figures
and show that a is 62.6. [3]
(ii) Explain why it is not appropriate to use the given regression line in (i) to
predict the renovation cost when given the sales figures. Hence, use an
appropriate regression line to find the renovation cost when the sales
figure is $80000. [3]
(iii) A statistician suggested to Keith that the data could be better modeled by
y = c + d ln x. Give a reason to support the statistician’s claim and find the
values of c and d. [3]
 TJC08

A manufacturer produces candles with a mean burning time of µ minutes and

standard deviation σ minutes. From past records, the mean burning time of the
candles is reported to be 28 minutes.

(a) The burning time of 15 randomly chosen candles has a mean of 29.4 minutes
and a standard deviation of 2.38 minutes. Find the smallest integer α such that there
is sufficient evidence at α% level of significance to say that the mean burning time
has increased. State any assumptions you have to make in order to carry out the test.

(b) Given that σ is now known to be 3.2 minutes, find the range of values of the
sample mean obtained from a sample of size 100 that would lead to the
rejection of the null hypothesis in favour of the alternative hypothesis that the
mean burning time has changed at 2 % level of significance. [5,4]

With the aid of a suitable diagram, explain what is meant by the “least squares
regression line of y on x”, where x and y are two observed variable quantities of a
given population. [2]

An open bottle containing 70 ml of perfume was placed in a bathroom. The amount of

perfume lost to evaporation over time was recorded as follows:

No. of weeks (t): 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Volume lost, in ml 15 26 45 52 k 61 64 66 67
(v)

(i) Given that the estimated regression line of v on t is v = 19.19 + 0.625 t, [3]
find the value of k, giving your answer to the nearest integer. Calculate the value of
the product-moment correlation coefficient.
[1]
(ii) If V is the value obtained by substituting a sample value of t into the equation
of the regression line of v on t, find Σ (v – V)2 [2]

(iii) Find the expected value of v when t = 90 and comment on the result obtained.

(iv) In an attempt to better model the relationship between v and t, three

alternatives are suggested:

(I) v = a + bt + ct2 , with c < 0

b
(II) v = a + t , with b < 0
(III) v = a + bet , with b > 0 [2]
State, with a reason, which model is most appropriate and calculate the
corresponding least squares regression line by performing a suitable transformation. [2]

(v) Using the model chosen in (iv), estimate the value of v when t = 90. Compare
and comment on the result obtained here, and in (iii). [2]

AJC08

An insurance company claims that its customers take an average of 80 minutes

to decide whether to purchase a newly introduced policy from the company. In
experiments carried out to test this claim, the time taken in minutes, x, was
measured on 250 occasions, and the data obtained is summarized as follows:

∑ ( x − 75) = 875 , ∑ ( x − 75) 2

=26095 .

(i) Find an unbiased estimate of the population variance s 2 . [1]

(ii) Find an inequality satisfied by the significance level of the test where the
claim is not justified. [3]

An insurance agent of this company wants to change the claim to ‘customers

take an average of w minutes to decide whether to purchase a newly introduced
policy from the company’. The time taken on another 20 occasions was recorded
by the agent; it was found that the mean time of his sample was 75 minutes.
Based on his sample, find the set of values of w for which the null hypothesis
µ = w is not rejected at 5% level of significance. [4]

A random sample of students is surveyed. The amount of time they spent

sleeping at night, x hours, and the amount of time they spent playing computer
games, y hours, are recorded.

From the collected data where 1 < x < 9 and 1 < y < 5, the equation of the line of
regression y on x is found to be 20 y + 9 x = 104 , and the equation of the line of
regression x on y is x + 2 y = 11.
(i) (
Find x , y , ) [1]
(ii) Find the value of the product moment correlation coefficient between x
and y. [1]
(iii) Estimate the amount of time that a student sleeps if he spends 4 hours
gaming on a certain day. Comment on the reliability of this value. [2]

(c) The Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the price of gold are thought to be
B
related by the equation y = A x , where A and B are constants. Six pairs of
observations are given as follow:
 CPI (x) 1.5 2.1 3.5 4.7 5.1 7.2
gold ($ y) 208 284 410 514 561 950

(i) Obtain the equation of the line of regression of ln y on ln x , and deduce

the estimates of the values of A and B. [3]

(ii) A gold trader claims that the recent increase in the price of gold is due to
the high CPI. Explain whether you agree with his statement. [1]