GG company believes its fertilizer contains a higher concentration of nitrogen than its leading rival, Planty. A small scale trial was held with 27 bags of fertilizer from GG and 24 bags from Planty. The results showed that the average and variance of the concentration of nitrogen for GG was 11.75 kg per bag and 12.14 kg per bag squared, respectively, with the results for Planty being 9.57 kg per bag and 10.47 kg per bag squared.

It is assumed that the population variances are the same and the distribution of nitrogen concentration for both groups closely approximates a normal distribution. Use an alpha of 0.1.

1. If the hypotheses are to be written in the form of the average of GG minus the average of Planty, what is the direction of the alternative hypothesis used to test GG's belief. Type the letters gt (greater than), ge (greater than or equal to), lt (less than), le (less than or equal to) or ne (not equal to) as appropriate in the box. 2. Determine the standard error for the difference between means, reporting your answer to three decimal places. 3. Calculate the test statistic, reporting your answer to two decimal places. 4. Is the null hypothesis rejected for this test? Type yes or no. 5. Regardless of your answer for 4, if the null hypothesis was rejected, can we conclude that GG's belief is valid at the 10% level of significance? Type yes or no.