17. Periodically, Merrill Lynch customers are asked to evaluate Merrill Lynch financial consultants and services (2000 Merrill Lynch Client Satisfaction Survey). Higher ratings on the client satisfaction survey indicate better service, with 7 the maximum service rating.

Independent samples of service ratings for two financial consultants are summarized here.

Consultant A has 10 years of experience, whereas consultant B has 1 year of experience.

Use α  .05 and test to see whether the consultant with more experience has the higher population mean service rating.

a. State the null and alternative hypotheses.

b. Compute the value of the test statistic.

c. What is the p-value?

d. What is your conclusion?