Barbara Dwyer, the manager at Lux Hotel, makes every effort to ensure that customers attempting to make phone reservations do not have to wait too long to speak with a reservation specialist. Since the hotel accepts phone reservations 24 hours a day, Barbara is especially interested in maintaining consistency in service. Barbara wants to determine if the variance of wait time in the early morning shift (12:00 am – 6:00 am) differs from that in the late morning shift (6:00 am – 12:00 pm). She uses independently drawn samples of wait time for phone reservations for both shifts for the analysis; a portion of the data is shown in the accompanying table. Assume that wait times are normally distributed.

Early . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Late
67 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
48 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100
⋮ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ⋮
69 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

a. Specify the hypotheses to test if the variance of wait time in the early morning shift differs from that in the late morning shift.

b. At the 1% significance level, what is your conclusion?