10.1 Practice Answers
10.1 Practice Answers
Just before the presidential election in November 2008, a local newspaper conducted a poll of residents of a medium-sized city and
found that 120 out of a simple random sample of 250 men intended to vote for Barack Obama and 132 out of an SRS of 240 women
intended to vote for Obama.
(a) Is this convincing evidence that there was a gender difference in Obama’s support in this city? Support your conclusion with a
test of significance, using α= 0.05.
State: H0: p1 = p2
Ha: p1 ≠ p2
Where p1 = the proportion of male voters in this city who supported Obama.
Random: The problem states that two SRSs were taken of 250 men and 240 women
10%: It’s safe to assume that there are more than 10(250) = 2500 males voters and 10(240) = 2400 female voters in a
“medium-sized city.”
Large Counts: The number of successes and failures in the two groups are 120, 130, 132, and 108—all of which are ≥ 10.
120 120+132
Do: ^p1= =0.48 ^pc = =0.514
250 250+240
132
^p2 = =0.55
240
0.48−0.55
=−0.1 .55
z= .514( 0.486) 514(0.486)
√ 250
+
240
p-value 2P(z < -1.55) = normalcdf (lower: -1E99, upper: -1.55, µ = 0, σ =1 ) = 0.121
Conclusion: Fail to reject the null hypothesis. The p-value of 0.1212 is greater than α = 0.05. We do not have sufficient evidence to
conclude that the there is a difference in the proportion of males and females who supported Obama.
(b) Construct and interpret a 95% confidence interval for the difference in proportion of women and men who supported Obama in
this city. (You do not need to repeat your plan step!)
We are 95% confident that the interval from – 0.158 to 0.018 captures the true difference in proportion of male and female voters
supporting Obama in this city.
2. A state policeman has a pet theory that people who drive red cars are more likely to drive too fast. On his day off, he borrows one
of the department’s radar guns, parks his car in a rest area, and measures the proportion of red cars and non-red cars that are driving
too fast. (He decides ahead of time to define “driving too fast” as exceeding the speed limit by more than 5 miles per hour). To
produce a random sample, he rolls a die and only includes a car in his sample if he rolls a 5 or a 6. He finds that 18 of 28 red cars are
driving too fast, and 75 of 205 other cars are driving too fast.
(a) Is this convincing evidence that people who drive red cars are more likely to drive too fast, as the policemen has defined it?
Support your conclusion with a test of significance, using α = 0.05.
State: H0: p1 = p2
Ha: p1 > p2
Where p1 = the proportion of red cars that are driving too fast
Random: The problem states that two SRSs were taken of 28 red cars and 205 non red cars
10%: It’s safe to assume that there are more than 10(28) = 280 red cars and 10(205) = 2050 non-red cars on the road
Large Counts: The number of successes and failures in the two groups are 18, 10, 75, and 130—all of which are ≥ 10.
18 18+75
Do: ^p1= =0.64 ^pc = =0.399
28 28+205
75
^p2 = =0.37
205
0.64−0.37
=2.73
z= 0.399 ( 0.601 ) 0.399 ( 0.601 )
√ 28
+
205
p-value P(z > 2.73) = normalcdf (lower: 2.73, upper: 1E99, µ = 0, σ =1 ) = 0.0032
Conclusion: Reject the null hypothesis. A P-value of 0.0032 is less than a = 0.05. We have sufficient evidence to conclude that the
proportion of red cars that drive too fast on this highway is greater than the proportion of non-red cars that drive too fast.
b) Construct and interpret a 95% confidence interval for the difference in proportion of red cars that drove too fast and other cars that
drive too fast. (You do not need to repeat your plan step!)
We are 95% confident that the interval from 0.080 to 0.470 captures the true difference in the proportion of red cars and non-red cars
that drive too fast on this highway.
(b) Construct and interpret a 95% confidence interval for the difference in proportion of red cars that drove too fast and other cars that
drive too fast. (You do not need to repeat your plan step!)