Edexcel Paper 3 2019 June — Question 3

Exam BoardEdexcel
ModulePaper 3 (Paper 3)
Year2019
SessionJune
TopicHypothesis test of Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient

3. Barbara is investigating the relationship between average income (GDP per capita), \(x\) US dollars, and average annual carbon dioxide ( \(\mathrm { CO } _ { 2 }\) ) emissions, \(y\) tonnes, for different countries. She takes a random sample of 24 countries and finds the product moment correlation coefficient between average annual \(\mathrm { CO } _ { 2 }\) emissions and average income to be 0.446
  1. Stating your hypotheses clearly, test, at the \(5 \%\) level of significance, whether or not the product moment correlation coefficient for all countries is greater than zero. Barbara believes that a non-linear model would be a better fit to the data.
    She codes the data using the coding \(m = \log _ { 10 } x\) and \(c = \log _ { 10 } y\) and obtains the model \(c = - 1.82 + 0.89 m\) The product moment correlation coefficient between \(c\) and \(m\) is found to be 0.882
  2. Explain how this value supports Barbara's belief.
  3. Show that the relationship between \(y\) and \(x\) can be written in the form \(y = a x ^ { n }\) where \(a\) and \(n\) are constants to be found.