Final answer:
This question is in the field of Medicine, regarding the efficacy of blood pressure medication in treating hypertension over a 12-week period, measured by changes in systolic pressure and tested at a 1 percent significance level.
Step-by-step explanation:
The subject of this question pertains to Medicine, specifically addressing the effectiveness of blood pressure medication in reducing systolic pressure in a small sample of adults. This is a study of hypertension treatment, examining changes in systolic blood pressure readings before and after a 12-week treatment period, using a test of statistical significance at the 1 percent significance level.
In order to determine the effectiveness of the medicaton, a paired sample t-test could be performed. This test compares the means of two measurements taken on the same subjects under different conditions (in this case, before and after medication) to ascertain if there is a statistically significant difference. As the doctor is using a 1% significance level, this means that for the medication to be considered effective, the resulting p-value from the t-test must be less than 0.01, indicating that the observed changes in blood pressure are unlikely to have occurred by chance.