The American Educational Research Journal (Fall, 1998)

published a study to compare the mathematics achievement test scores of male and female students.

a. The researchers hypothesized that the distribution of test scores for males is more variable than the corresponding distribution for females. Use the summary information in the table below to test this claim at a = .01.

b. Does the result, part

a, prevent you from conducting a test to compare the mean scores of males and females? Explain.