TABLE 10-8
a Buyer for a Manufacturing Plant Suspects

question 77

Multiple Choice

TABLE 10-8
A buyer for a manufacturing plant suspects that his primary supplier of raw materials is overcharging. In order to determine if his suspicion is correct, he contacts a second supplier and asks for the prices on various identical materials. He wants to compare these prices with those of his primary supplier. The data collected is presented in the table below, with some summary statistics presented (all of these might not be necessary to answer the questions which follow) . The buyer believes that the differences are normally distributed and will use this sample to perform an appropriate test at a level of significance of 0.01.
$\begin{array}{crrr}&\text { Primary}& \text { Secondary }\\\underline{\text {Material}}&\underline{\text { Supplier}}&\underline{\text { Supplier} }&\underline{\text {Difference }}\\1 & \$ 55 & \$ 45 & \$ 10 \\2 & \$ 48 & \$ 47 & \$ 1 \\3 & \$ 31 & \$ 32 & -\$ 1 \\4 & \$ 83 & \$ 77 & \$ 6 \\5 & \$ 37 & \$ 37 & \$ 0 \\6 & \$ 55 & \$ 54 & \$ 1 \\\hline \text { Sum: } & \$ 309 & \$ 292 & \$ 17\end{array}$

$\text { Sum of Squares: } \$ 17,573 \$ 15,472 \quad \$ 139$


-Referring to Table 10-8, the test to perform is a

• A) paired t-test for the mean difference.
• B) separate-variance t test for differences between two means.
• C) pooled-variance t test for differences between two means.
• D) Z test for the difference between two means.

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Definitions:

Descriptive Premise

A premise that is based on empirical facts.

Argument

A set of statements or reasons made to support or oppose a proposition.

Rhetoric

The defense of a particular position usually without adequate consideration of opposing evidence in order to win people over to one’s position.

Logical Argumentation

The process of forming a coherent and logical series of statements leading from a premise to a conclusion.