Exam 18: A Roadmap for Analyzing Data

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 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?

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?

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 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 100 insured drivers and recorded X,the amount of claims each made in the last 3 years.A Pareto chart can be used to present this information.

A physician and president of a Tampa Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)are attempting to show the benefits of managed health care to an insurance company.The physician believes that certain types of doctors are more cost-effective than others.To investigate this,the president obtained independent random samples of 20 HMO physicians from each of 4 primary specialtiesGeneral Practice (GP),Internal Medicine (IM),Pediatrics (PED),and Family Physicians (FP)and recorded the total charges per member per month for each.A second variable which the president believes influences total charges per member per month is whether the doctor is a foreign or US medical school graduate.To investigate this,the president also collected data on 20 foreign medical school graduates in each of the 4 primary specialty types described above.So information on charges for 40 doctors (20 foreign and 20 US medical school graduates)was obtained for each of the 4 specialties.Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate to find out if the primary specialty and the origin of medical school degree interact to affect the charges?

An airline wants to select a computer software package for its reservation system.Four software packages (1,2,3,and 4)are commercially available.The airline will choose the package that bumps as few passengers,on the average,as possible during a month.An experiment is set up in which each package is used to make reservations for 5 randomly selected weeks.(A total of 20 weeks was included in the experiment.)Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate?

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?

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.

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?

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.She has found out that the different varieties do have an impact on crop yield.Which of the following tests will be the most appropriate to find out which variety will produce the highest yield?

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?

Data on the amount of time spent studying and the exam score of 150 students at a high school were collected.You want to know if a student's exam score is linearly related to the amount of time spent on studying.Which of the following would you compute?