Assignment 3

Question 1
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the average annual salary of full-time
state employees was $49,056 in New York and $46,800 in Massachusetts.
Suppose that these mean salaries are based on random samples of 500 full-time
state employees from New York and 400 full-time state employees from
Massachusetts and that the population standard deviations were $9,000 and
$8,000 respectively. Is there any difference between the mean salaries of the
employees in these two states?

Question 2
Consider a national car rental company that is interested in testing to determine
whether there is a difference in mean mileage for sport utility vehicles (SUVs)
driven in town versus those driven on the highway. Based on its experience with
regular automobiles, the company believes the mean highway mileage will
exceed the mean city mileage. To test this belief, the company has randomly
sample 30 SUV rentals driven only on highway and another random sample of 30
SUV rentals driven only in city. The vehicles were filled with 14 gallons of
gasoline. The company then asked each customer to drive their car until it ran
out of gasoline. At that point, the elapsed miles were noted and the miles per
gallon (mpg) were recorded. (Assume equal variance) The sample results are as
follows:
Highway
Mileage

x 1=19.65 miles

City Mileage

x 2=16.14 miles

s1 = 4.30
miles

s2 = 5.44
miles

Question 3
The European Union was considering a probe of computer makers after
consumers complained that they were being overcharged for ink cartridges.
Companies such as Cannon, Hewlett-Packard, and Epson are the printer market
leaders and make most of their printer-related profits by selling replacement ink
cartridges. Suppose an independent test agency wishes to conduct a test to
determine whether name-brand ink cartridges generate more color pages on
average than competing generic ink cartridges. A simple random sample of 10
users was selected, and the users were given a name-brand cartridge. A second
random sample of 8 users was given generic cartridges. Both groups used their
printers until the ink ran out. The number of pages printed was recorded.
(Assume equal variance) The sample results are as follows:
Name-brand
cartridge

x 1=322.5 pages

Generic
cartridge

x 2=298.3 pages
1

s1 = 48.3
pages

s2 = 53.3
pages

Question 4
Referring to Question 3, suppose the experiment regarding ink cartridges is
conducted differently. The test is done using paired samples. This means that the
same people will use both types of cartridges, and the pages printed in each case
will be recorded. A random sample of 6 people will test each type of cartridge.
The following data and paired differences were observed:
Printer User
1
2
3
4
5
6

Name-Brand
306
256
402
299
306
257

Generic
300
260
357
286
290
260

Difference (d)
6
-4
45
13
16
-3