Thread: Hypothesis Testing. Not sure which number to start with.

I'm going through my book prepping for my final in a couple weeks, and I found one question that I'm not sure how to start the hypothesis testing.

We are testing 12oz cans of soda. 50 cans were tested with a mean of 11.83oz. The question is in reference to if the soda manufacturer is being honest when it claims 12oz on the can.

So the null hypothesis and alternate hypothesis would use the 11.83oz mean? Or the 12oz number since that is what we are testing for?

So would it be:

H0 = 12 or H0 = 11.83 ?

Thanks!

I would say, that depends on the definition of 'honest'. What does your textbook say about that?


But I would choose Ho: V=12 and H1: V<12, where V is the volume of soda per can.

Rationale: Null hypothesis is the 'status quo'; H1 hypothesis is challenging the status quo (in this case, with the results of the test).

V is the parameter of a distribution. 11.83 is the sample mean of the test which helps us to evaluate the parameter, or, in this case, to test the hypothesis relating to the parameter V.