A total of 20 overweight females have agreed to participate in a study of the effectiveness of four weight-loss treatments: A, B, C, and D. The researcher first calculates how overweight each subject is by comparing the subject’s actual weight with her “ideal” weight. The subjects and their excess weights in pounds are as follows:

The response variable is the weight lost after 8 weeks of treatment.

a. If the 5 most overweight women were assigned Treatment A, the next 5 most overweight women were assigned Treatment B, and so on, then the amount overweight and type of treatment would be confounded. Explain this statement carefully.

b. Describe how to randomly assign the women to treatments using a randomized block design. Use blocks of size 4 formed by the amount overweight.

c. Use technology or Table D to carry out the random assignment.

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