Question

1. a newspaper article reports that the proportion of poisonous snakes living in a local state park is 0.21. a wildlife researcher disputes this claim. when a hypothesis test is conducted, the null hypothesis is written as $h_{0}:p = 0.21$. what is wrong with this?

a. nothing is wrong.
b. an incorrect sign is being used in the null hypothesis.
c. it is not necessary for the symbol $p$ to be included in the null hypothesis.
d. the number given in the null hypothesis is not correct.
e. without knowing the wildlife researchers theory, we cannot assess the validity of the null hypothesis.

Explanation:

In hypothesis testing, the null hypothesis \(H_0\) is a statement of no difference or no effect. It is typically written with an equality sign (\(=\)). Here, the claim is about the proportion \(p\) of poisonous snakes. The null hypothesis \(H_0:p = 0.21\) is correctly formulated as it is stating the proportion as claimed in the newspaper article. The alternative hypothesis (not shown here) would depend on the researcher's theory (e.g., \(H_1:p
eq0.21\) for a two - tailed test, \(H_1:p>0.21\) or \(H_1:p < 0.21\) for one - tailed tests). But the null hypothesis itself is correctly written with the equality sign for the parameter \(p\) (proportion).

Answer:

A. Nothing is wrong.