Consumers can purchase nonprescription medications at food stores, mass merchandise stores such as Target and Wal-Mart, or pharmacies. About 45% of consumers make such purchases at pharmacies. What accounts for the popularity of pharmacies, which often charge higher prices?

A study examined consumers' perceptions of overall performance of the three types of stores, using a long questionnaire that asked about such things as "neat and attractive store," "knowledgeable staff," and "assistance in choosing among various types of nonprescription medication." A performance score was based on 27 such questions. The subjects were197people chosen at random from the Indianapolis telephone directory. Here are the means and standard deviations of the performance scores for the sample.

Store type

Food stores x = 18.41 s= 24.51

Mass merchandisers x= 32.02 s= 33.45

Pharmacies x= 48.58 s= 35.22

We do not know the population standard deviations, but a sample standard deviationsfrom so large a sample is usually close to. Usesin place of the unknownin this exercise.

(a) What population do you think the authors of the study want to draw conclusions about? (the American public, pharmacies, citizens of Indianapolis, sick people, food stores)

What population are you certain they can draw conclusions about? (the American public citizens of Indianapolis, sick people, pharmacies, food stores)

(b) Give99%confidence intervals for the mean performance for each type of store. (Round your answers to three decimal places.)

Food stores ( _______ , ____)

Mass merchandisers (______ , _______)

Pharmacies (_______. _______)

(c) Based on these confidence intervals, are you convinced that consumers think that pharmacies offer higher performance than the other types of stores? (In Chapter 12, we will study a statistical method for comparing means of several groups.)

a)yes, the pharmacy interval is well above the others.

b)yes, the mass merchandiser interval is well above the others.

c. yes, the food store interval is well below the others.

d. no, there is no clear evidence of a significant difference.