Question

A low white blood cell count, or leukopenia, is a decrease in disease-fighting cells (leukocytes) circulating in your blood. Low white blood cell counts can also indicate the presence of disease. A count lower than 4,000 white blood cells per microliter of blood is generally considered a low white blood cell count. Suppose you are worried about your white blood cell count and have your blood sampled on 10 random days. You use the mean of your samples to test the theory that your average white blood cell count is MORE than 4000 What sort of p-value are you hoping will come from this test.

a. A really big p-value so you'll have statistical evidence your white blood cell count is above 4,000.

b. A p-value close to 0 so you'll have statistical evidence your white blood cell count is around 4000 on average

c. A really small p-value so that so you'll have statistical evidence your white blood cell count is above 4000 .

d. A really small p-value because this means there is a high probability that your white blood cell count is above 4000.

e. A p-value close to 1 because this means there is a high probability that your white blood cell count is above 4000.

f. Exactly 2 of the above are true.

Answer 1

We are supposed to test for average white blood cells in body, if m is defined as the average white blood cells in body then the hypothesis are:

Ho: m=4000, the average white blood cells in body are on average 4000 or we can say the person suffering from leukemia.

H1: m>4000, the person ' s claim is true that average white blood cells count is above 4000 and person is not having leukemia.

p value is defined as the probability of rejection of Ho when it is pre assumed that Ho is true. If p value is less than level of significance, that means there is high probability in favor of H1 that although the null hypothesis is true but there is no proper evidence from sample data in favor of Ho so we have to reject it.So, we can say smaller the value of p, the stronger is the rejection probability for Ho. Thus, we can see from the above options, option c and d are correctly explaining the concept. So right option is option f which states that exactly two options are correct.

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