Part 1:

(a) The hypotheses appropriate for the research question "Is there an evident difference in the
average scores of students in the reading and writing exam?" are as follows:

 Null Hypothesis (H0): There isn’t any difference in the average scores of students in
the reading and writing exam.
 Alternative Hypothesis (Ha): There is an evident difference in the average scores of
students in the reading and writing exam.

(b) The conditions necessary for the test are:

 Randomness: We assume that the samples of 250 students should be randomly
selected. This is important to ensure that the sample is representative of the
population.

 Normality: The distribution of the differences in scores should be approximately

normal in order to apply the Central Limit Theorem, which states that the sampling
distribution of the sample mean will be approximately normally distributed regardless
of the shape of the population distribution.
 Independence: We assume that the scores of one student should not be influenced by
the scores of another student. This is typically a safe assumption if the sample size is
less than 10% of the population size.

(c) To find if there is convincing evidence of a difference between the average scores on the
two exams, we can conduct a T-test. Given the average observed difference in scores (mean
difference) of and the standard deviation of the differences (s) of 8.887 points, the T-test
statistic is calculated as follows: T = (mean difference - hypothesized difference) / (s / sqrt(n))
where n is the sample size.

To calculate the degrees of freedom, we use the formula: df = n - 1

Given the p-value of 0.39, we compare it to the significance level (e.g., α = 0.05) to make a
conclusion. If the p-value is less than the significance level, we reject the null hypothesis.
Otherwise, we fail to reject the null hypothesis.

(d) The type of error that is highly possible to have been made is a Type II error or false
negative. That is, we fail to reject the null hypothesis when it is actually false. It is also
possible to conclude that there is no difference in the average scores of students in the reading
and writing exam when there is actually a difference.
(e) Based on the results, if the confidence interval for the average difference between the
reading and writing scores does not include 0, then it would suggest that there is a statistically
significant difference between the average scores. In contrast, if the confidence interval
includes 0, it would suggest that there is not enough evidence to conclude a difference in the
average scores.
Part 2:

(1) The null hypothesis (H0) is that there is no difference between the average fuel efficiency
of cars with manual and automatic transmissions. The alternative hypothesis (Ha) is that there
is a difference between the average fuel efficiency of cars with manual and automatic
transmissions. In mathematical terms:

H0: μ1 - μ2 = 0 Ha: μ1 - μ2 ≠ 0

where μ1 is the average fuel efficiency of cars with manual transmissions and μ2 is the
average fuel efficiency of cars with automatic transmissions.

(2) To calculate the T-statistic, we need the sample means, sample standard deviations, and
sample sizes for both manual and automatic transmissions. With this information, we can use
the formula: T = (mean1 - mean2) / sqrt((s1^2 / n1) + (s2^2 / n2)) where mean1 and mean2
are the sample means, s1 and s2 are the sample standard deviations, and n1 and n2 are the
sample sizes.

(3) The degrees of freedom (df) for a two-sample t-test is typically calculated using the
formula:

df = min(n1 - 1, n2 - 1)

where n1 and n2 are the sample sizes for the manual and automatic transmissions
respectively. Without the actual data, we cannot calculate the degrees of freedom.

(4) Given the p-value of 0.0029, which is less than the typical significance level of 0.05, we
reject the null hypothesis. This means that there is strong evidence to suggest a difference
between the average fuel efficiency of cars with manual and automatic transmissions in terms
of their average city mileage.

Reference:

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American

Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Yakir, B. (2011). Introduction to Statistical Thinking (With R, Without Calculus). Jerusalem,

IL: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Statistics. Retrieved from
https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/1408108/mod_page/content/22/Textbook%20Statistica
%20Inference.pdf