EC221 Quiz

Statistics Review: Hypothesis Testing

Marcia Schafgans
October 2012
(For questions 1 to 9)
A random sample of size n is drawn from X N ( ; 2 ). Denote an element of the sample
by Xi ; 1
Pn
i=1 Xi
i n. I want to test whether the expected value of X is bigger than . Dene X =
. Denote
n
by the cdf of a normally distributed variable with mean 0 and variance 1.
1. The null and alternative hypothesis to be tested are:
(a) H0 :

= , H1 :

(b) H0 :

= , H1 :

(c) H0 :

= , H1 :

(d) H0 :

> , H1 :

(e) H0 :

> , H1 :

>
6=
=

2. I need to choose the level of signicance . About , it is true that:

(a) The best thing to do is to pick a very high , so the power of the test is high.
(b) The best thing to do is to pick a very low , so the power of the test is high.
(c)

needs to be around 0.05, which corresponds to the zone of reasonable doubt.

(d) The lower is , the lower is the probability of a type I error but the higher is the probability
of a type 2 error.
(e) The lower is , the lower is the probability of a type I error and the lower is the probability
of a type 2 error, but the power of the test also decreases.
3. Assuming

> , the power of the test:

(a) is increasing in

and increasing in .

(b) is increasing in

and decreasing in .

(c) is decreasing in

and increasing in .

(d) is decreasing in

and decreasing in .

(e) is independent of
4. Suppose that
(a)
(b)
(c)

is known. I can reject the null hypothesis at the

n(x

<1

p
n(x

>1

(x

and decreasing in .

<1

=2

level of signicance if:

(x

(d)

(e)

>1

n(x

<1

=2

5. The p-value is calculated as:

(a)

(b)

(c)

=1

(d)

(e)

=1

(x
p

(1

n(x

n(x

n(x

(x

6. If the p-value is , that means:

(a) The probability that

>

is 1

(b) The probability that

>

is .

(c) The probability that we reject the null hypothesis at the level of signicance
(d) We can reject the null hypothesis if and only if

is .

< .

(e) We can reject the null hypothesis if and only if > .

q Pn
2
i=1 (Xi X)
and t ; such that T (t ; ) = 1
, where T
7. Suppose is not known. Dene S =
n 1
is the cdf of a t-student distribution with degrees of freedom. I can reject the null hypothesis
at the level of signicance if:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

n(x
S

<t

;n .

n(x
S
(x
)
S
p
n(x
S
(x
)
S

>t

;n 1 .

<t
)

;n 1 .

>t

>t

=2;n

or

n(x
S

< t(1

)=2;n .

;n .

8. I could not reject H0 . My brother-in-law told me: the expected value of X ( ) is actually much
bigger than . Thus, the power of your test is very low and that is why your test could not reject
H0 .
(a) He is wrong, as usual. The power of the test does not depend on , which is unobservable.
(b) He is wrong, as usual, because I chose a very low , so the power of the test cannot be very
low.
(c) He is wrong, as usual. The power of the test is increasing in

(d) He is wrong, as usual. The power of the test is relevant when the alternative is true, but I
failed to reject the null, so the power of the test is probably not important in this case.
(e) If was indeed much bigger than , then he would be right, but the available evidence does
not suggest that so he is probably wrong, as usual.

9. My father-in-law told me: the value of is , I am absolutely sure about that!. He is usually
wrong. I want to check whether he is also wrong in this case, that is, I want to check whether I
can reject the null H0 : = , versus the alternative H1 : 6= . Unfortunatelly, my computer
got a virus and I lost the data. So I cant test it...
Fortunatelly however, a friend of mine that is working on the same problem has just told me that
he yesterday tested the null H00 : = versus the alternative H10 : > . He was able to reject
the null at the level of signicance . That means:
(a) I can reject H0 in favor of H1 at the level of signicance =2.
(b) I can reject H0 in favor of H1 at the level of signicance .
(c) I can reject H0 in favor of H1 at the level of signicance 2 .
(d) I cannot reject H0 because my friends test give me no information about the other side of
the distribution of x.
(e) The probability that
no sense.

is 0, so my father-in-law is obviously wrong and this test makes