Use the following information to answer the next twelve exercises: Suppose an airline claims that its flights are consistently on time with an average delay of at most 15 minutes. It claims that the average delay is so consistent that the variance is no more than 150 minutes. Doubting the consistency part of the claim, a disgruntled traveler calculates the delays for his next 25 flights. The average delay for those 25 flights is 22 minutes with a standard deviation of 15 minutes.
You want to buy a specific computer. A sales representative of the manufacturer claims that retail stores sell this computer at an average price of $1,249 with a very narrow standard deviation of $25. You find a website that has a price comparison for the same computer at a series of stores as follows: $1,299; $1,229.99; $1,193.08; $1,279; $1,224.95; $1,229.99; $1,269.95; $1,249. Can you argue that pricing has a larger standard deviation than claimed by the manufacturer? Use the 5% significance level. As a potential buyer, what would be the practical conclusion from your analysis?
OpenStax Introductory Business Statistics 2e, 11.2 Test of a Single Variance, exercise 34