Exam 18: A Roadmap for Analyzing Data

The opinions (classified as "for," "neutral" or "against") of a sample of 200 people broken down by gender about the latest congressional plan to eliminate anti-trust exemptions for professional baseball. You can present this information using a scatter plot.

An agronomist wants to compare the crop yield of 3 varieties of chickpea seeds. She plants all 3 varieties of the seeds on each of 5 different patches of fields. She then measures the crop yield in bushels per acre. Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate to find out if there is any difference in crop yield among the 3 varieties?

A survey claims that 9 out of 10 doctors recommend aspirin for their patients with headaches. To test this claim, a random sample of 100 doctors results in 83 who indicate that they recommend aspirin. Which of the following tests will you perform?

A contractor wants to forecast the number of contracts in future quarters, using quarterly data on number of contracts during the 10-year period from 2001 to 2010. Which of the following would be the most appropriate analysis to perform?

An airline wants to select a computer software package for its reservation system. Four software packages (1, 2, 3, and 4) are commercially available. An experiment is set up in which each package is used to make reservations for 5 randomly selected weeks and data on the number of passengers that are bumped over a month are collected. (A total of 20 weeks was included in the experiment.) The variability of the number of passengers that are bumped is found to be roughly the same for the 4 packages. The distribution on the number of passengers that are bumped has been found out to be right-skewed for package 1 and 4, left-skewed for package 2 and normal for package 3. Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate to find out if the mean number of passengers being bumped over a month is the same across the 4 packages?

A researcher randomly sampled 30 graduates, 18 males and 12 females, of an MBA program and recorded data concerning their starting salaries. Of primary interest to the researcher was the effect of gender on starting salaries. Statistics of the mean salaries of the females and males in the sample were computed. The sample standard deviations suggest that the variability of starting salaries of the two groups is almost the same. Suppose the starting salaries from both groups can be considered as normally distributed. Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate?

An entrepreneur is considering the purchase of a coin-operated laundry. The current owner claims that over the past 5 years, the mean daily revenue was $675 with a standard deviation of $75. A sample of 30 days reveals a daily mean revenue of $625 and a standard deviation of $70. Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate?

Four surgical procedures currently are used to install pacemakers. If the patient does not need to return for follow-up surgery, the operation is called a "clear" operation. A heart center wants to compare the 4 procedures and collects the following numbers of patients from their own records: Procedure Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate to find out which of the 4 procedures is the most effective?

A manager of a product sales group believes the number of sales made by an employee depends on how many years that employee has been with the company and how he/she scored on a business aptitude test. A random sample of 38 employees was selected to collect data on their number of sales, number of years with the company and scores on a business aptitude test. Which of the following would you perform to draw conclusion on the belief?

A quality control engineer is in charge of the manufacture of computer disks. Two different processes can be used to manufacture the disks. He suspects that the Kohler method produces a greater proportion of defects than the Russell method. He samples 150 of the Kohler and 200 of the Russell disks and finds that 27 and 18 of them, respectively, are defective. If Kohler is designated as "Group 1" and Russell is designated as "Group 2," which of the following tests will you use to find out if the Kohler method is worse than the Russell method?

A professor of economics at a small Texas university wanted to determine what year in school students were taking his tough economics course. Data were collected on the class status ("freshman," "sophomore," "junior" or "senior") of 50 students enrolled in one of his economics course. A side-by-side bar chart can be used to present this information.

Every spring semester, the School of Business coordinates a luncheon for graduating seniors, their families, and friends with local business leaders. Corporate sponsorship pays for the lunches of each of the seniors, but students have to purchase tickets to cover the cost of lunches served to guests they bring with them. Data on the number of guests each graduating senior invited to the luncheon and the number of graduating seniors in each category were collected. A histogram can be used to present this information.

A sample of 200 students at a Big-Ten university was taken after the midterm to ask whether they went bar hopping the weekend before the midterm or spent the weekend studying, and whether they did well or poorly on the midterm. You can use a contingency table to present this information.

An insurance company evaluates many variables about a person before deciding on an appropriate rate for automobile insurance. A representative from a local insurance agency selected a random sample of 15 insured drivers and recorded the amount of claims each made in the last 3 years. Based on this information, which of the following will you construct to learn about the mean amount of claims made by the company's customer?

The director of admissions at a state college is interested in seeing if admissions status (admitted, waiting list, denied admission) at his college is related to the type of community (urban, rural, suburban) in which an applicant resides. Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate?

A Paso Robles wine producer wanted to forecast the cases of Merlot wine sold. The number of cases of merlot wine sold in a 28-year period was collected. Which of the following would be the most appropriate analysis to perform?

A survey was conducted to determine how people rated the quality of programming available on television. Respondents were asked to rate the overall quality from 0 (no quality at all) to 100 (extremely good quality). A cumulative percentage polygon (ogive) can be used to present this information.

Four surgical procedures currently are used to install pacemakers. If the patient does not need to return for follow-up surgery, the operation is called a "clear" operation. A heart center wants to compare the 4 procedures and collects the following numbers of patients from their own records: Procedure Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate to find out whether the 4 procedures are equally effective?

Data on the amount of money made in a year by 1,000 families in a small town were collected. You want to know if the money made is normally distributed. Which of the following would you use?

A political pollster randomly selects a sample of 100 voters each day for 8 successive days and asks how many will vote for the incumbent. The pollster wishes to see if the percentage favoring the incumbent candidate is too erratic. Which of the following would be the most appropriate analysis to perform?