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Palm oil (used for food, various consumer goods, and biofuels) is produced from

ID: 1719625 • Letter: P

Question

Palm oil (used for food, various consumer goods, and biofuels) is produced from the oil palm tree. Oil palm plantations in Malaysia account for 13% of the land area, up from 1% in 1974. The biofuel potential of palm oil could mean even further increase in the acreage of rainforest converted to oil palm plantations. One of the indicators used to monitor the environmental impacts of the oil palm plantations is the amount of N_2O emitted from the soil. A published report^1 measured the nitrogen released from the soil in a oil palm plantation and a rainforest. The data is given in the table below (mean plusminus standard deviation) and values of student's t are given here. Calculate the t value to compare these two means. Assume the population standard deviation for each data set is the same. At which of the following confidence levels are the results different?

Explanation / Answer

H0: mu1 = mu2

Ha: mu1 not equal to mu2

Two tailed hypothesis test

df = 188
  standard error of difference = 0.006

t = 2.5493

The two-tailed P value equals 0.0116

As p lies between 0.01 and 0.05

we can accept null hypothesis at 99% confidence but reject at 95% conf level

  Group   Group One     Group Two   Mean 0.03600 0.05100 SD 0.04100 0.04000 SEM 0.00435 0.00398 N 89        101