2.05a Hypothesis testing language: null, alternative, p-value, significance

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CAIE S2 2020 June Q5
10 marks Moderate -0.3
5 Sunita has a six-sided die with faces marked \(1,2,3,4,5,6\). The probability that the die shows a six on any throw is \(p\). Sunita throws the die 500 times and finds that it shows a six 70 times.
  1. Calculate an approximate \(99 \%\) confidence interval for \(p\).
  2. Sunita believes that the die is fair. Use your answer to part (a) to comment on her belief.
  3. Sunita uses the result of her 500 throws to calculate an \(\alpha \%\) confidence interval for \(p\). This interval has width 0.04 . Find the value of \(\alpha\).
CAIE S2 2020 June Q7
9 marks Moderate -0.8
7 A market researcher is investigating the length of time that customers spend at an information desk. He plans to choose a sample of 50 customers on a particular day.
  1. He considers choosing the first 50 customers who visit the information desk. Explain why this method is unsuitable.
    The actual lengths of time, in minutes, that customers spend at the information desk may be assumed to have mean \(\mu\) and variance 4.8. The researcher knows that in the past the value of \(\mu\) was 6.0. He wishes to test, at the \(2 \%\) significance level, whether this is still true. He chooses a random sample of 50 customers and notes how long they each spend at the information desk.
  2. State the probability of making a Type I error and explain what is meant by a Type I error in this context.
  3. Given that the mean time spent at the information desk by the 50 customers is 6.8 minutes, carry out the test.
  4. Give a reason why it was necessary to use the Central Limit theorem in your answer to part (c).
    If you use the following lined page to complete the answer(s) to any question(s), the question number(s) must be clearly shown.
CAIE S2 2021 June Q5
6 marks Standard +0.3
5 The time, in minutes, spent by customers at a particular gym has the distribution \(\mathrm { N } ( \mu , 38.2 )\). In the past the value of \(\mu\) has been 42.4. Following the installation of some new equipment the management wishes to test whether the value of \(\mu\) has changed.
  1. State what is meant by a Type I error in this context.
  2. The mean time for a sample of 20 customers is found to be 45.6 minutes. Test at the \(2.5 \%\) significance level whether the value of \(\mu\) has changed.
CAIE S2 2021 June Q2
8 marks Standard +0.3
2 In the past, the time, in hours, for a particular train journey has had mean 1.40 and standard deviation 0.12 . Following the introduction of some new signals, it is required to test whether the mean journey time has decreased.
  1. State what is meant by a Type II error in this context.
  2. The mean time for a random sample of 50 journeys is found to be 1.36 hours. Assuming that the standard deviation of journey times is still 0.12 hours, test at the \(2.5 \%\) significance level whether the population mean journey time has decreased.
  3. State, with a reason, which of the errors, Type I or Type II, might have been made in the test in part (b).
CAIE S2 2021 June Q3
6 marks Standard +0.3
3 The local council claims that the average number of accidents per year on a particular road is 0.8 . Jane claims that the true average is greater than 0.8 . She looks at the records for a random sample of 3 recent years and finds that the total number of accidents during those 3 years was 5 .
  1. Assume that the number of accidents per year follows a Poisson distribution.
    1. State null and alternative hypotheses for a test of Jane's claim.
    2. Test at the \(5 \%\) significance level whether Jane's claim is justified.
  2. Jane finds that the number of accidents per year has been gradually increasing over recent years. State how this might affect the validity of the test carried out in part (a)(ii).
CAIE S2 2022 June Q2
5 marks Moderate -0.3
2 Arvind uses an ordinary fair 6-sided die to play a game. He believes he has a system to predict the score when the die is thrown. Before each throw of the die, he writes down what he thinks the score will be. He claims that he can write the correct score more often than he would if he were just guessing. His friend Laxmi tests his claim by asking him to write down the score before each of 15 throws of the die. Arvind writes the correct score on exactly 5 out of 15 throws. Test Arvind's claim at the \(10 \%\) significance level.
CAIE S2 2022 June Q7
6 marks Standard +0.3
7 In the past, the mean time for Jenny's morning run was 28.2 minutes. She does some extra training and she wishes to test whether her mean time has been reduced. After the training Jenny takes a random sample of 40 morning runs. She decides that if the sample mean run time is less than 27 minutes she will conclude that the training has been effective. You may assume that, after the training, Jenny's run time has a standard deviation of 4.0 minutes.
  1. State suitable null and alternative hypotheses for Jenny's test.
  2. Find the probability that Jenny will make a Type I error.
  3. Jenny found that the sample mean run time was 27.2 minutes. Explain briefly whether it is possible for her to make a Type I error or a Type II error or both.
    If you use the following lined page to complete the answer(s) to any question(s), the question number(s) must be clearly shown.
CAIE S2 2022 June Q4
11 marks Standard +0.3
4 The number of cars arriving at a certain road junction on a weekday morning has a Poisson distribution with mean 4.6 per minute. Traffic lights are installed at the junction and council officer wishes to test at the \(2 \%\) significance level whether there are now fewer cars arriving. He notes the number of cars arriving during a randomly chosen 2 -minute period.
  1. State suitable null and alternative hypotheses for the test.
  2. Find the critical region for the test.
    The officer notes that, during a randomly chosen 2 -minute period on a weekday morning, exactly 5 cars arrive at the junction.
  3. Carry out the test.
  4. State, with a reason, whether it is possible that a Type I error has been made in carrying out the test in part (c).
    The number of cars arriving at another junction on a weekday morning also has a Poisson distribution with mean 4.6 per minute.
  5. Use a suitable approximating distribution to find the probability that more than 300 cars will arrive at this junction in an hour.
CAIE S2 2022 June Q2
6 marks Moderate -0.3
2 Anton believes that \(10 \%\) of students at his college are left-handed. Aliya believes that this is an underestimate. She plans to carry out a hypothesis test of the null hypothesis \(p = 0.1\) against the alternative hypothesis \(p > 0.1\), where \(p\) is the actual proportion of students at the college that are left-handed. She chooses a random sample of 20 students from the college. She will reject the null hypothesis if at least 5 of these students are left-handed.
  1. Explain what is meant by a Type I error in this context.
  2. Find the probability of a Type I error in the test.
  3. Given that the true value of \(p\) is 0.3 , find the probability of a Type II error in the test.
CAIE S2 2021 March Q3
4 marks Moderate -0.8
3 An architect wishes to investigate whether the buildings in a certain city are higher, on average, than buildings in other cities. He takes a large random sample of buildings from the city and finds the mean height of the buildings in the sample. He calculates the value of the test statistic, \(z\), and finds that \(z = 2.41\).
  1. Explain briefly whether he should use a one-tail test or a two-tail test.
  2. Carry out the test at the \(1 \%\) significance level.
CAIE S2 2021 March Q6
10 marks Standard +0.3
6 It is known that \(8 \%\) of adults in a certain town own a Chantor car. After an advertising campaign, a car dealer wishes to investigate whether this proportion has increased. He chooses a random sample of 25 adults from the town and notes how many of them own a Chantor car.
  1. He finds that 4 of the 25 adults own a Chantor car. Carry out a hypothesis test at the 5\% significance level.
  2. Explain which of the errors, Type I or Type II, might have been made in carrying out the test in part (a).
    Later, the car dealer takes another random sample of 25 adults from the town and carries out a similar hypothesis test at the 5\% significance level.
  3. Find the probability of a Type I error.
    If you use the following lined page to complete the answer(s) to any question(s), the question number(s) must be clearly shown.
CAIE S2 2022 March Q2
5 marks Moderate -0.3
2 Harry has a five-sided spinner with sectors coloured blue, green, red, yellow and black. Harry thinks the spinner may be biased. He plans to carry out a hypothesis test with the following hypotheses. $$\begin{aligned} & \mathrm { H } _ { 0 } : \mathrm { P } ( \text { the spinner lands on blue } ) = \frac { 1 } { 5 } \\ & \mathrm { H } _ { 1 } : \mathrm { P } ( \text { the spinner lands on blue } ) \neq \frac { 1 } { 5 } \end{aligned}$$ Harry spins the spinner 300 times. It lands on blue on 45 spins.
Use a suitable approximation to carry out Harry's test at the \(5 \%\) significance level.
CAIE S2 2022 March Q4
6 marks Standard +0.3
4 In the past the time, in minutes, taken by students to complete a certain challenge had mean 25.5 and standard deviation 5.2. A new challenge is devised and it is expected that students will take, on average, less than 25.5 minutes to complete this challenge. A random sample of 40 students is chosen and their mean time for the new challenge is found to be 23.7 minutes.
  1. Assuming that the standard deviation of the time for the new challenge is 5.2 minutes, test at the \(1 \%\) significance level whether the population mean time for the new challenge is less than 25.5 minutes.
  2. State, with a reason, whether it is possible that a Type I error was made in the test in part (a).
CAIE S2 2014 June Q3
5 marks Standard +0.8
3 The number of calls per day to an enquiry desk has a Poisson distribution. In the past the mean has been 5 . In order to test whether the mean has changed, the number of calls on a random sample of 10 days was recorded. The total number of calls was found to be 61 . Use an approximate distribution to test at the 10\% significance level whether the mean has changed.
CAIE S2 2014 June Q5
9 marks Moderate -0.3
5 Mahmoud throws a coin 400 times and finds that it shows heads 184 times. The probability that the coin shows heads on any throw is denoted by \(p\).
  1. Calculate an approximate \(95 \%\) confidence interval for \(p\).
  2. Mahmoud claims that the coin is not fair. Use your answer to part (i) to comment on this claim.
  3. Mahmoud's result of 184 heads in 400 throws gives an \(\alpha \%\) confidence interval for \(p\) with width 0.1 . Calculate the value of \(\alpha\).
CAIE S2 2014 June Q7
10 marks Standard +0.3
7 A researcher is investigating the actual lengths of time that patients spend with the doctor at their appointments. He plans to choose a sample of 12 appointments on a particular day.
  1. Which of the following methods is preferable, and why?
    • Choose the first 12 appointments of the day.
    • Choose 12 appointments evenly spaced throughout the day.
    Appointments are scheduled to last 10 minutes. The actual lengths of time, in minutes, that patients spend with the doctor may be assumed to have a normal distribution with mean \(\mu\) and standard deviation 3.4. The researcher suspects that the actual time spent is more than 10 minutes on average. To test this suspicion, he recorded the actual times spent for a random sample of 12 appointments and carried out a hypothesis test at the 1\% significance level.
  2. State the probability of making a Type I error and explain what is meant by a Type I error in this context.
  3. Given that the total length of time spent for the 12 appointments was 147 minutes, carry out the test.
  4. Give a reason why the Central Limit theorem was not needed in part (iii).
CAIE S2 2015 June Q2
5 marks Moderate -0.5
2 Marie claims that she can predict the winning horse at the local races. There are 8 horses in each race. Nadine thinks that Marie is just guessing, so she proposes a test. She asks Marie to predict the winners of the next 10 races and, if she is correct in 3 or more races, Nadine will accept Marie's claim.
  1. State suitable null and alternative hypotheses.
  2. Calculate the probability of a Type I error.
  3. State the significance level of the test.
CAIE S2 2015 June Q3
6 marks Challenging +1.2
3 A die is biased so that the probability that it shows a six on any throw is \(p\).
  1. In an experiment, the die shows a six on 22 out of 100 throws. Find an approximate \(97 \%\) confidence interval for \(p\).
  2. The experiment is repeated and another \(97 \%\) confidence interval is found. Find the probability that exactly one of the two confidence intervals includes the true value of \(p\).
CAIE S2 2016 June Q4
6 marks Moderate -0.3
4 In the past, the time spent by customers in a certain shop had mean 12.5 minutes and standard deviation 4.2 minutes. Following a change of layout in the shop, the mean time spent in the shop by a random sample of 50 customers is found to be 13.5 minutes.
  1. Assuming that the standard deviation remains at 4.2 minutes, test at the \(5 \%\) significance level whether the mean time spent by customers in the shop has changed.
  2. Another random sample of 50 customers is chosen and a similar test at the \(5 \%\) significance level is carried out. State the probability of a Type I error.
CAIE S2 2016 June Q2
4 marks Moderate -0.3
2 Jacques is a chef. He claims that \(90 \%\) of his customers are satisfied with his cooking. Marie suspects that the true percentage is lower than \(90 \%\). She asks a random sample of 15 of Jacques' customers whether they are satisfied. She then performs a hypothesis test of the null hypothesis \(p = 0.9\) against the alternative hypothesis \(p < 0.9\), where \(p\) is the population proportion of customers who are satisfied. She decides to reject the null hypothesis if fewer than 12 customers are satisfied.
  1. In the context of the question, explain what is meant by a Type I error.
  2. Find the probability of a Type I error in Marie's test.
CAIE S2 2017 June Q6
14 marks Standard +0.3
6 The number of sports injuries per month at a certain college has a Poisson distribution. In the past the mean has been 1.1 injuries per month. The principal recently introduced new safety guidelines and she decides to test, at the \(2 \%\) significance level, whether the mean number of sports injuries has been reduced. She notes the number of sports injuries during a 6-month period.
  1. Find the critical region for the test and state the probability of a Type I error.
  2. State what is meant by a Type I error in this context.
  3. During the 6 -month period there are a total of 2 sports injuries. Carry out the test.
  4. Assuming that the mean remains 1.1 , calculate the probability that there will be fewer than 30 sports injuries during a 36-month period.
CAIE S2 2017 June Q1
4 marks Easy -1.2
1 In a survey of 2000 randomly chosen adults, 1602 said that they owned a smartphone. Calculate an approximate \(95 \%\) confidence interval for the proportion of adults in the whole population who own a smartphone.
CAIE S2 2017 June Q2
4 marks Moderate -0.8
2 In a random sample of 200 shareholders of a company, 103 said that they wanted a change in the management.
  1. Find an approximate \(92 \%\) confidence interval for the proportion, \(p\), of all shareholders who want a change in the management.
  2. State the probability that a \(92 \%\) confidence interval does not contain \(p\).
CAIE S2 2017 June Q7
11 marks Standard +0.3
7 In the past the number of accidents per month on a certain road was modelled by a random variable with distribution \(\operatorname { Po } ( 0.47 )\). After the introduction of speed restrictions, the government wished to test, at the 5\% significance level, whether the mean number of accidents had decreased. They noted the number of accidents during the next 12 months. It is assumed that accidents occur randomly and that a Poisson model is still appropriate.
  1. Given that the total number of accidents during the 12 months was 2 , carry out the test.
  2. Explain what is meant by a Type II error in this context.
    It is given that the mean number of accidents per month is now in fact 0.05 .
  3. Using another random sample of 12 months the same test is carried out again, with the same significance level. Find the probability of a Type II error.
CAIE S2 2018 June Q3
5 marks Standard +0.3
3 A researcher wishes to estimate the proportion, \(p\), of houses in London Road that have only one occupant. He takes a random sample of 64 houses in London Road and finds that 8 houses in the sample have only one occupant. Using this sample, he calculates that an approximate \(\alpha \%\) confidence interval for \(p\) has width 0.130 . Find \(\alpha\) correct to the nearest integer.