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Statistics · The Chi-Square Distribution

Lab 1: Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit

CC BY 4.0 · OpenStax · approximately 3 min read

Learning objectives

Lab 1: Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit

    Student Learning Outcome

  • The student will evaluate data collected to determine if they fit either the uniform or exponential distributions.

Collect the Data

Go to your local supermarket. Ask 30 people as they leave for the total amount on their grocery receipts. Or, ask 3 cashiers for the last 10 amounts. Be sure to include the express lane, if it is open.

Note

You may need to combine two categories so that each cell has an expected value of at least five.
  1. Record the values.
    __________ __________ __________ __________ __________
    __________ __________ __________ __________ __________
    __________ __________ __________ __________ __________
    __________ __________ __________ __________ __________
    __________ __________ __________ __________ __________
    __________ __________ __________ __________ __________
  2. Construct a histogram of the data. Make five to six intervals. Sketch the graph using a ruler and pencil. Scale the axes.

    View original figure (external; image not reproduced in this text edition)

    Original figure description: Blank graph with relative frequency on vertical

  3. Calculate the following:
    1. x ¯ = ________
    2. s = ________
    3. s2 = ________

Uniform Distribution

Test to see if grocery receipts follow the uniform distribution.

  1. Using your lowest and highest values, X ~ U (_______, _______).
  2. Divide the distribution into fifths.
  3. Calculate the following:
    1. lowest value = _________
    2. 20th percentile = _________
    3. 40th percentile = _________
    4. 60th percentile = _________
    5. 80th percentile = _________
    6. highest value = _________
  4. For each fifth, count the observed number of receipts and record it. Then determine the expected number of receipts and record that.
    Fifth Observed Expected
    1st
    2nd
    3rd
    4th
    5th
  5. H0: ________
  6. Ha: ________
  7. What distribution should you use for a hypothesis test?
  8. Why did you choose this distribution?
  9. Calculate the test statistic.
  10. Find the p-value.
  11. Sketch a graph of the situation. Label and scale the x-axis. Shade the area corresponding to the p-value.

    View original figure (external; image not reproduced in this text edition)

    Original figure description: Blank graph with vertical and horizontal axes.

  12. State your decision.
  13. State your conclusion in a complete sentence.

Exponential Distribution

Test to see if grocery receipts follow the exponential distribution with decay parameter 1 x .

  1. Using 1 x ¯ as the decay parameter, X ~ Exp(_________).
  2. Calculate the following:
    1. lowest value = ________
    2. first quartile = ________
    3. 37th percentile = ________
    4. median = ________
    5. 63rd percentile = ________
    6. 3rd quartile = ________
    7. highest value = ________
  3. For each cell, count the observed number of receipts and record it. Then determine the expected number of receipts and record that.
    Cell Observed Expected
    1st
    2nd
    3rd
    4th
    5th
    6th
  4. H0: ________
  5. Ha: ________
  6. What distribution should you use for a hypothesis test?
  7. Why did you choose this distribution?
  8. Calculate the test statistic.
  9. Find the p-value.
  10. Sketch a graph of the situation. Label and scale the x-axis. Shade the area corresponding to the p-value.

    View original figure (external; image not reproduced in this text edition)

    Original figure description: Blank graph with vertical and horizontal axes.

  11. State your decision.
  12. State your conclusion in a complete sentence.

    Discussion Questions

  1. Did your data fit either distribution? If so, which?
  2. In general, do you think it’s likely that data could fit more than one distribution? In complete sentences, explain why or why not.
← Test of a Single VarianceLab 2: Chi-Square Test of Independence →

Attribution. Statistics, OpenStax, Rice University, and the contributing authors credited in the book. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. Source revision 7dea80ae28 of openstax/osbooks-statistics (2026-04-23). CC BY 4.0. Original source ↗. Text edition of a pinned CC BY 4.0 source revision of the OpenStax book, converted from CNXML by the EvidenceHelix importer. Original prose, learning objectives, tables, exercises, glossary and captions are preserved; images are not copied (figures link to the original source and keep their credits). No new content was added. Later revisions of this book can carry different licence terms and are not used.

In this chapter Contents

  • Introduction
  • Facts About the Chi-Square Distribution
  • Goodness-of-Fit Test
  • Test of Independence
  • Test for Homogeneity
  • Comparison of the Chi-Square Tests
  • Test of a Single Variance
  • Lab 1: Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit
  • Lab 2: Chi-Square Test of Independence

Source

OpenStax source file ↗

Illustrated original ↗

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