Wilcoxon tests

2 Four pairs of randomly chosen twins were each given identical puzzles to solve. The times taken (in seconds) are shown in the following table. Stating any necessary assumption, test at the \(10 \%\) significance level whether there is a difference between the population mean times of first-born and second-born twins.

7 In order to improve their mathematics results 10 students attended an intensive Summer School course. Each student took a test at the start of the course and a similar test at the end of the course. The table shows the scores achieved in each test. It is desired to test whether there has been an increase in the population mean score.

1. Explain why a two-sample \(t\)-test would not be appropriate.
2. Stating any necessary assumptions, carry out a suitable \(t\)-test at the \(\frac { 1 } { 2 } \%\) significance level.
3. The Summer School director claims that after taking the course the population mean score increases by more than 5 . Is there sufficient evidence for this claim?

1. A random sample of 8 people were given a new drug designed to help people sleep.

In a two-week period the drug was given for one week and a placebo (a tablet that contained no drug) was given for one week. In the first week 4 people, selected at random, were given the drug and the other 4 people were given the placebo. Those who were given the drug in the first week were given the placebo in the second week. Those who were given the placebo in the first week were given the drug in the second week. The mean numbers of hours of sleep per night for each of the people are shown in the table.

1. State one assumption that needs to be made in order to carry out a paired \(t\)-test.
2. Stating your hypotheses clearly, test, at the \(1 \%\) level of significance, whether or not the drug increases the mean number of hours of sleep per night by more than 10 minutes. State the critical value for this test.

6 In a two-tail Wilcoxon rank-sum test, the sample sizes are 13 and 15. The sum of the ranks for the sample of size 13 is 135 . Carry out the test at the \(5 \%\) level of significance.

6 In a two-tail Wilcoxon rank-sum test, the sample sizes are 13 and 15. The sum of the ranks for the sample of size 13 is 135 . Carry out the test at the \(5 \%\) level of significance.

5 An historian has reason to believe that the average age at which men got married in the seventeenth century was higher in urban areas compared to rural areas. The historian collected data from a random sample of 8 men in an urban area and a random sample of 6 men in a rural area, all of whom were married in the seventeenth century. The results were as follows, given in the form years/months.

1. Use an appropriate non-parametric method to test at the \(5 \%\) significance level whether the average age at marriage of men is higher in urban areas than in rural areas.
2. When checking the data, the historian found that the age of one of the men, Mr X, which had been recorded as 28/11, had been wrongly recorded. When corrected, the result of the test in part (a) was unchanged. Determine the youngest age that Mr X could have been, given that it was not the same, in years and months, as that of any of the other men in the sample.

4 A psychologist investigated the scores of pairs of twins on an aptitude test. Seven pairs of twins were chosen randomly, and the scores are given in the following table.

1. Carry out an appropriate Wilcoxon test at the \(10 \%\) significance level to investigate whether there is evidence of a difference in test scores between the elder and the younger of a pair of twins.
2. Explain the advantage in this case of a Wilcoxon test over a sign test.

4 A company has many factories. It is concerned about incidents of trespassing and, in the hope of reducing if not eliminating these, has embarked on a programme of installing new fencing.

1. Records for a random sample of 9 factories of the numbers of trespass incidents in typical weeks before and after installation of the new fencing are as follows.

   Factory	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I
   Number before installation	8	12	6	4	14	22	4	13	14
   Number after installation	6	11	0	1	18	10	11	5	4

   Use a Wilcoxon test to examine at the \(5 \%\) level of significance whether it appears that, on the whole, the number of trespass incidents per week is lower after the installation of the new fencing than before.
2. Records are also available of the costs of damage from typical trespass incidents before and after the introduction of the new fencing for a random sample of 7 factories, as follows (in £).

   Factory	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
   Cost before installation	1215	95	546	467	2356	236	550
   Cost after installation	1268	110	578	480	2417	318	620

   Stating carefully the required distributional assumption, provide a two-sided \(99 \%\) confidence interval based on a \(t\) distribution for the population mean difference between costs of damage before and after installation of the new fencing. Explain why this confidence interval should not be based on the Normal distribution.

2 A company wishes to buy a new lathe for making chair legs. Two models of lathe, 'Allegro' and 'Vivace', were trialled. The company asked 12 randomly selected employees to make a particular type of chair leg on each machine. The times, in seconds, for each employee are shown in the table. The company wishes to test whether there is any difference in average times for the two machines.

1. State the circumstances under which a non-parametric test should be used.
2. Use two different non-parametric tests and show that they lead to different conclusions at the 5\% significance level.
3. State, with a reason, which conclusion is to be preferred.

1 A Wilcoxon signed-rank test is carried out at the \(5 \%\) level of significance on a random sample of size 32 . The hypotheses are \(\mathrm { H } _ { 0 } : m = m _ { 0 } , \mathrm { H } _ { 1 } : m < m _ { 0 }\) where \(m\) is the population median and \(m _ { 0 }\) is a specific numerical value. The value obtained for the test statistic \(T\) is 162 . Find the outcome of the test.

2

1. 1. Give two reasons why an investigator might need to take a sample in order to obtain information about a population.
   2. State two requirements of a sample.
   3. Discuss briefly the advantage of the sampling being random.
2. 1. Under what circumstances might one use a Wilcoxon single sample test in order to test a hypothesis about the median of a population? What distributional assumption is needed for the test?
   2. On a stretch of road leading out of the centre of a town, highways officials have been monitoring the speed of the traffic in case it has increased. Previously it was known that the median speed on this stretch was 28.7 miles per hour. For a random sample of 12 vehicles on the stretch, the following speeds were recorded. $$\begin{array} { l l l l l l l l l l l l } 32.0 & 29.1 & 26.1 & 35.2 & 34.4 & 28.6 & 32.3 & 28.5 & 27.0 & 33.3 & 28.2 & 31.9 \end{array}$$ Carry out a test, with a \(5 \%\) significance level, to see whether the speed of the traffic on this stretch of road seems to have increased on the whole.
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6. A zoologist knows that the median body length of adults in a species of fire-bellied toads is 4.2 cm . The zoologist thinks he has discovered a new subspecies of fire-bellied toads. If there is sufficient evidence to suggest the median body length differs from 4.2 cm , he will continue his studies to confirm whether he has discovered a new subspecies. Otherwise, he will abandon his studies on fire-bellied toads. The lengths of 10 randomly selected adult toads from the group being investigated are given below. $$\begin{array} { l l l l l l l l l l } 5 \cdot 0 & 3 \cdot 2 & 4 \cdot 9 & 4 \cdot 0 & 3 \cdot 3 & 4 \cdot 2 & 6 \cdot 1 & 4 \cdot 3 & 4 \cdot 8 & 5 \cdot 9 \end{array}$$ Carry out a suitable Wilcoxon signed rank test at a significance level as close to \(1 \%\) as possible and give your conclusion in context.

8 The critical region for an \(r\) \% two-tailed Wilcoxon signed-rank test, based on a large sample of size \(n\), is \(\left\{ W _ { + } \leqslant 113 \right\} \cup \left\{ W _ { + } \geqslant 415 \right\}\).

1. Show that \(n = 32\).
2. Using a suitable approximation, determine the value of \(r\).

1. The times, \(x\) seconds, taken by the competitors in the 100 m freestyle events at a school swimming gala are recorded. The following statistics are obtained from the data.

Following the gala, a mother claims that girls are faster swimmers than boys. Assuming that the times taken by the competitors are two independent random samples from normal distributions,

1. test, at the \(10 \%\) level of significance, whether or not the variances of the two distributions are the same. State your hypotheses clearly.
2. Stating your hypotheses clearly, test the mother's claim. Use a \(5 \%\) level of significance.

1 Ten archers shot at targets with two types of bow. Their scores out of 100 are shown in the table.

1. Use the sign test, at the \(5 \%\) level of significance, to test the hypothesis that bow type \(P\) is better than bow type \(Q\).
2. Why would a Wilcoxon signed rank test, if valid, be a better test than the sign test?

1. A random sample of size \(n = 8\) of paired data is taken from a population. The data are plotted below. \includegraphics[max width=\textwidth, alt={}, center]{ba41c616-0805-4466-81b8-b985b0bdd94b-06_572_983_335_541}

Test, at the \(1 \%\) level of significance, whether or not there is evidence of a negative rank correlation between the two variables. You should state your hypotheses and critical value and show your working clearly.

2. Every 6 months some engineers are tested to see if their times, in minutes, to assemble a particular component have changed. The times taken to assemble the component are normally distributed. A random sample of 8 engineers was chosen and their times to assemble the component were recorded in January and in July. The data are given in the table below.

1. Calculate a \(95 \%\) confidence interval for the mean difference in times.
2. Use your confidence interval to state, giving a reason, whether or not there is evidence of a change in the mean time to assemble a component. State your hypotheses clearly.

6 A biologist is studying the effect of nutrients on the heights to which plants grow. A random sample of 24 similar young plants is divided into two equal groups \(A\) and \(B\). The plants in group \(A\) are fed with nutrients and water and the plants in group \(B\) are given only water. After four weeks, the height, in cm, of each plant is measured and the results are as follows. The biologist decides to carry out a test at the \(5 \%\) significance level to test whether the nutrients have resulted in an increase in growth.

1. She carries out a Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Give a reason why this is an appropriate choice of test.
2. Carry out the Wilcoxon rank-sum test for these results.
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