CAIE S2 2005 June — Question 4

Exam BoardCAIE
ModuleS2 (Statistics 2)
Year2005
SessionJune
TopicHypothesis test of a normal distribution

4 A study of a large sample of books by a particular author shows that the number of words per sentence can be modelled by a normal distribution with mean 21.2 and standard deviation 7.3. A researcher claims to have discovered a previously unknown book by this author. The mean length of 90 sentences chosen at random in this book is found to be 19.4 words.
  1. Assuming the population standard deviation of sentence lengths in this book is also 7.3, test at the \(5 \%\) level of significance whether the mean sentence length is the same as the author's. State your null and alternative hypotheses.
  2. State in words relating to the context of the test what is meant by a Type I error and state the probability of a Type I error in the test in part (i).