AQA S2 2013 June — Question 6

Exam BoardAQA
ModuleS2 (Statistics 2)
Year2013
SessionJune
TopicHypothesis test of a normal distribution

6 A supermarket buys pears from a local supplier. The supermarket requires the mean weight of the pears to be at least 175 grams. William, the fresh-produce manager at the supermarket, suspects that the latest batch of pears delivered does not meet this requirement.
  1. William weighs a random sample of 6 pears, obtaining the following weights, in grams. $$\begin{array} { l l l l l l } 160.6 & 155.4 & 181.3 & 176.2 & 162.3 & 172.8 \end{array}$$ Previous batches of pears have had weights that could be modelled by a normal distribution with standard deviation 9.4 grams. Assuming that this still applies, show that a hypothesis test at the \(5 \%\) level of significance supports William's suspicion.
    (7 marks)
  2. William then weighs a random sample of 20 pears. The mean of this sample is 169.4 grams and \(s = 11.2\) grams, where \(s ^ { 2 }\) is an unbiased estimate of the population variance. Assuming that the population from which this sample is taken has a normal distribution but with unknown standard deviation, test William's suspicion at the \(\mathbf { 1 \% }\) level of significance.
  3. Give a reason why the probability of a Type I error occurring was smaller when conducting the test in part (b) than when conducting the test in part (a).