Problems for Class Discussions

1. Research conducted by a tobacco company indicates that the relative frequency distribution of tar
content of its newly developed low tar cigarette has a mean equal to 3.9 mg of tar/cigarette and a
standard deviation equal to 1 mg.
Suppose a sample of 100 low tar cigarette is randomly selected from a day’s production and tar
content is measured in each. Assuming tobacco company’s claim is true, what is the probability
that the mean tar content of sample is greater than 4.15 mg. [0.0062]

2. The safety limit of a crane is known to be 32 tons. The mean weight and the standard deviation of
a large number of iron rods is 0.3 ton and 0.2 ton respectively. One hundred rods are lifted at a
time. Compute the probability of an accident. [0.1587]

3. It has been found that 2% of the tools produced by a certain machine are defective. What is the
probability that in a shipment of 400 such tools, 3% or more will be defective. [0.1056]

4. There is a concern about the speed of automobiles travelling over a particular stretch. For a
random sample of seven automobiles, radar indicated the following speeds in miles per hour:
79 73 68 77 86 71 69
Assuming normal population distribution, find the margin of error of 95% confidence interval for
the mean speed of all automobiles travelling over this stretch of highway. [5.92]

5. A business school placement chairperson wants to estimate the mean annual salaries five years
after students graduate. A random sample of 25 such students found a sample mean of $42740
and a sample standard deviation of $4780. Find a 90% confidence interval for the population
mean, assuming that the population distribution is normal. [$ 41104.28 to $ 44375.72]

6. The environment protection officer of a large plant sought to determine the mean daily amount
of sulphur oxide emitted by the plant. Because measures cost very high, only a simple random
sample of ten days measurement (in tons per day) were obtained. These are as below:
8 7 10 15 11 6 8 5 13 12
Suppose the emission per day are normally distributed. Compute 95% confidence interval for
mean output of sulphur oxide. [7.18 to 11.82]

7. A city has a total population of one crore. It is estimated that 90% of the city dwellers use
toothpaste of one brand or the other while 10% use tooth powder or other things. Several
competing brands are available in the city. In order to estimate the market share of a particular
brand of a toothpaste (the proportion of people who use brand X amongst all toothpaste users),
say brand X, what appropriate size of sample should be selected so that probability is 95% that
error in sample estimate lies within 5% of true market share in the total population? An initial pilot
sample of size 100 suggests that market share of brand X is 25%. [4610]

8. A study is to be dome to estimate the proportion of ladies who own an automatic dryer. How large
a sample size is needed if one wishes to be 99% confident that sample estimate differs from true
proportion by an amount less than 0.01? [16577]
9. A certain size of wooden box is designed to hold 25 Kg of apples. Farmers fill such boxes in the
field. The boxes of apples are then sold to the retailers. The retailers complain that many boxes
contain less than 25 Kg of apples. In order to investigate into the complaints of the retailers, a
random sample of 30 boxes is selected. Suppose the average weight of these boxes is 23.8 Kg.
Based on this information, test if the retailer’s complaint is true. Use 5% level of significance for
making a conclusion about null hypothesis. Also report the size of type II error when the average
weight of apples in the box (for the population) is actually 22 Kg. From a previous study, it is known
that the standard deviation of weight of apples in a box is 8.67 Kg.
[Failed to reject H0, beta = 0.3613]

10. EMS Hospitals provide one of the most comprehensive emergency medical services in the world.
Operating in a multiple hospital system with approximately 20 mobile medical units, the service
goal is to respond to medical emergencies with a mean time of 12 minutes or less.
The response times for a random sample of 40 medical emergencies were tabulated. The sample
mean is 13.25 minutes. The population standard deviation is believed to be 3.2 minutes. The EMS
director wants to perform a hypothesis test, with a .05 level of significance, to determine whether
the service goal of 12 minutes or less is being achieved.
[Reject H0, test statistic = 2.47, p-value = 0.0068]

11. The production line for Glow toothpaste is designed to fill tubes with a mean weight of 6 oz.
Periodically, a sample of 30 tubes will be selected in order to check the filling process. Quality
assurance procedures call for the continuation of the filling process if the sample results are
consistent with the assumption that the mean filling weight for the population of toothpaste tubes
is 6 oz.; otherwise, the process will be adjusted.
Assume that a sample of 30 toothpaste tubes provides a sample mean of 6.1 oz. The population
standard deviation is believed to be 0.2 oz. Perform a hypothesis test, at the 0.03 level of
significance, to help determine whether the filling process should continue operating or be
stopped and corrected.
[Reject H0, test statistic = 2.74, p-value = 0.0062]

12. For testing the null hypothesis that a large lot contains 10% defectives against the alternative that
it is more, a random sample of 5 items is inspected and the null hypothesis is rejected if 2 or more
defective items are found. Calculate the probability of committing type I error. Also, compute the
size of type II error if the alternate hypothesis specifies that lot contains 15% defective items.
[𝜶 =0.08146, 𝜷 =0.83521]

13. A State Highway Patrol periodically samples vehicle speeds at various locations on a particular
roadway. The sample of vehicle speeds is used to test the hypothesis H0: μ ≤ 65.
The location where speeds are recorded is deemed the best locations for radar traps. At the chosen
location, a sample of 64 vehicles shows a mean speed of 66.2 mph with a standard deviation of
4.2 mph. Use α = 0.05 to test the hypothesis.
[Reject H0, test statistic = 2.286, 0.01 < p-value < 0.025]

14. The Unsure.com website reports that the mean annual premium for automobile insurance in the
India was INR 10192 in March 2014. People in Gujarat believed automobile insurance was cheaper
there and decided to develop statistical support for their opinion. A sample of 50 automobile
insurance policies from the state showed a mean annual premium of INR 9750 with a standard
deviation of INR 1400.
 Develop a hypothesis test that can be used to determine whether the mean annual premium in
Gujarat was different from the national mean annual premium. At α = 0.05, what is your
conclusion?
[Reject H0, test statistic = -2.23, 0.02 < p-value < 0.05]

15. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 11.3% of workers belonged to unions in 2013. Suppose
a sample of 400 workers is collected in 2018 to determine whether union efforts to organize have
increased union membership.
Formulate the hypotheses that can be used to determine whether union membership increased
in 2018. If the sample results show that 52 of the workers belonged to unions, what is the p-value
for your hypothesis test? At α = 0.05, what is your conclusion?
[Failed to reject H0, test statistic = 1.07, p-value = 0.1423]

16. For a Christmas and New Year’s week, the National Safety Council estimated that 500 people would
be killed and 25,000 injured in road accidents. The NSC claimed that 50% of the accidents would
be caused by drunk driving. A sample of 120 accidents showed that 67 were caused by drunk
driving. Use these data to test the NSC’s claim with α = 0.05.
[Failed to reject H0, test statistic = 1.28, p-value = 0.2006]

17. Buyer’s Digest rates thermostats manufactured for home temperature control. In a recent test, 10
thermostats manufactured by ThermoRite were selected and placed in a test room that was
maintained at a temperature of 68oF. We will use the 10 readings below to develop a 95%
confidence interval estimate of the population variance. Assume that the room temperatures are
normally distributed.

[0.33 to 2.33]

18. Recall that Buyer’s Digest is rating ThermoRite thermostats. Buyer’s Digest gives an “acceptable”
rating to a thermostat with a temperature variance of 0.5 or less. Using the 10 readings, we will
conduct a hypothesis test (with α = 0.10) to determine whether the ThermoRite thermostat’s
temperature variance is “acceptable”. Assume that the room temperatures are normally
distributed.

[Failed to reject H0, Chi-square = 14.684, p-value = 0.18156]

19. In order to study variability of supply of two vendors, the following data have been collected:
Vendor No Sample Size Sample Variance (in days2)
1 10 71
2 8 32
Assuming that supply pattern of both the vendors is normally distributed, do the data indicate that
the variance of supply pattern are the same? Use 10% level of significance. Assume that the two
populations are normally distributed.
[Failed to reject H0, F = 2.22]
20. A potential buyer wants to decide which of the two brands of electric bulb he should buy as he
has to buy in bulk. As a specimen, he buys 100 bulbs of each of the two brands – A and B. On using
these bulbs, he finds that brand A has a mean life of 1000 hours and brand B has a mean life of
1050 hours. Do the two brands differ significantly in terms of their average life? The standard
deviations of the life of two bulbs are known to be 30 hours and 50 hours respectively.
[Reject H0, test statistic = -8.57, p-value = 1.034x10-17]

21. The capacities of Brand 1 and Brand 2 window AC are rated the same. Capacities of random
samples of six units of each brand were determined. The sample data, in thousands of BTU (British
Thermal Units) are given below:
Brand 1: 6.1 6.4 5.6 6.2 6.4 5.9
Brand 2: 4.8 5.2 5.3 5.1 5.0 5.2
Conduct suitable test at 5% level of significance to determine whether mean BTU consumption for
the two brands differ or not. Assume that the BTU consumption of the two brands is normally
distributed for the population.
[Reject H0, test statistic = 6.859, p-value = 0.000129]

22. Productivity (units produced per day) for a random sample of 10 workers was recorded before and
after a training programme. The following bivariate data was available, the first number in each
pair is the output “before” the programme and second figure is the output “after” the programme:
(54,60) (56,59) (50,57) (52,56) (55,56) (52,58) (56,62) (53,55) (53,54) (60,64)
Conduct suitable test of hypothesis at 1% level of significance to determine if mean productivity is
more after training than before training.
[Reject H0, test statistic = 5.72, p-value = 0.000143]

23. The production manager of electric products company wants to determine if the proportions of
defective assemblies made by shift 1 and shift 2 workers are different. Random samples of 500
shift 1 assemblies and 400 shift 2 assemblies have been obtained. The shift 1 assemblies had 72
defective and shift 2 assemblies had 36 defectives.
Formulate a suitable hypothesis and test it at 10% level of significance.
[Reject H0, test statistic = 2.48, p-value = 0.0131]

24. Following table presents performance rating of 200 workers by educational level. Test at 1%
significance level, the hypothesis that there is no significant difference in population proportions
of satisfactory workers in educational levels 1, 2 and 3.
Educational Level
Supervisor High School Not Completed High
No High School Total
Rating Completed School
(1)
(2) (3)
12 63 65 140
Satisfactory
8 17 35 60
Unsatisfactory
20 80 100 200
Total

[Fail to reject H0, test statistic = 5.06, cut-off points: 0.010 and 10.596]
25. For comparing the cleaning action of three detergents, following whiteness readings were
recorded on 15 swatches of white cloth, which were first soiled with India ink and then washed in
agitator type washing machine with respective detergents.
Detergent A Detergent B Detergent C
72 76
77
58 85
81
74 82
71
66
76 80
70 77
80

Test at 2% level of significance whether the differences among them are significant or they can be
attributed to chance.
[Reject H0, test statistic = 8.48, cut-off point = 6.93]