Question

A bathroom scale claims to be able to identify correctly any weight within a pound. You think that it cannot be that accurate. What type of test would you use?

1) Hypothesis test
2) Correlation test
3) Regression test
4) T-test

Answer 1

To evaluate the accuracy of a bathroom scale, a hypothesis test would be utilized. This test would challenge the scale's claim by assessing whether it consistently measures weights within one pound of the true weight. Known weights would be used for comparison and statistical methods applied to confirm the scale's precision.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine the accuracy of a bathroom scale that claims to be able to identify any weight within a pound, one would use a hypothesis test. This type of test allows you to compare the weights recorded by the scale to the true weights and determine if there is a statistically significant difference or not. Essentially, you will be testing the null hypothesis, which in this case would be that the scale is accurate within one pound against the alternative hypothesis that it is not.

Bathroom scales measure the force due to gravity on an object's mass and are calibrated to read this force in units of mass (kilograms or pounds). The scale contains springs that compress proportionally to the weight applied. The accuracy of a bathroom scale can be affected by various factors, hence the need for hypothesis testing.

It's important to note that while the scale measures weight, it displays mass. On the Moon, the bathroom scale would not read the same mass as on Earth because gravity is different. During the test, you would use known weights to compare against the scale readings and perform statistical analysis to assess the scale's accuracy.