Chapter 10 AP Statistics

Confidence Intervals for the Difference of Two Means

( x 1x 2 ) t

s 21 s 22
+
n1 n 2

******Many students lose credit for not including the word mean in their interpretation of a
confidence interval. Remember, the interval is about the difference in means, not the
difference in variables.******

Degrees of Freedom: Option 1 (Technology) use 2-SampTInt

1 or n2 1

Option 2: (more conservative) Chose smaller of n 1

and then table B

******You can do either option for calculating degrees of freedom, but it is recommended that
you use technology whenever possible. This will result in a narrower confidence interval,
smaller P-value, and more power. ******

******Say No to Pooling*******
(you only pool for a 2 sample proportion significance test)

10.2
Check
Confide
nce
Interval
for 1
2

Plastic grocery bags

Do plastic bags from Target or plastic bags from Walmart hold more
weight? A group of AP Statistics students decided to investigate by
filling a random sample of 5 bags from each store with common
grocery items until the bags ripped. Then they weighed the contents
of items in each bag to determine its capacity. Here are their results,
in grams
Target:
12,572
13,999
11,215
15,447
10,896
Walmart:
9552
10,896
6983
8767
9972

(a) Construct and interpret a 99% confidence interval for the difference in mean capacity of
plastic grocery bags from Target and Walmart.
(b) Does your interval provide convincing evidence that there is a difference in the mean
capacity between the two stores?

Chapter 10 AP Statistics

Significance Tests for the Difference of Two Means

( 1 2)
( x 1x 2 ) 2 2
s 1 s2
+
n1 n2
t=

Degrees of Freedom:

Option 1 (Technology) use 2-

SampTTest
1 or n2 1

Option 2: (more conservative) Chose smaller of n 1

and then table B

******Make sure to report the degrees of freedom in your answer. This will help the grader
understand which method, conservative or technology, you used.******

******Say No to Pooling*******
10.2
Check
Significa
nce Test
for
1 2

(a) The boxplots to

experiment.
whether or not
significantly

(b) For these data,

sG

xB

The stronger picker-upper?

In commercials for Bounty paper towels, the manufacturer claims
that they are the quicker picker-upper. But are they also the
stronger picker upper? Two AP Statistics students, Wesley and
Maverick, decided to find out. They selected a random sample of 30
Bounty paper towels and a random sample of 30 generic paper
towels and measured their strength when wet. To do this, they
uniformly soaked each paper towel with 4 ounces of water, held two
opposite edges of the paper towel, and counted how many quarters
each paper towel could hold until ripping, alternating brands.
the right display the results of their
Based only on the boxplots, discuss
you think the mean for Bounty is
higher than the mean for generic.

= 117.6,

sB

= 6.64,

xG

= 88.1, and

= 6.30. Use a significance test to determine if there is convincing evidence that wet Bounty
paper towels can hold more weight, on average, than wet generic paper towels.

Chapter 10 AP Statistics

Practice Problems: from section 10.2 (37, 39, 43, 45)