Question: Can a pretest on mathematics skills predict success in a statistics course? The 102 students in an introductory statistics class took a pretest at the beginning of the semester. The least-square regression line for predicting the score y on the final exam from the pretest score x was \[\hat{y}=10.5+0.73x\]. The standard error of the slope \[{{b}_{1}}\] estimated from the sample was 0.42.

Test the null hypothesis that there is no linear relationship between the pretest score and the score on the final exam (or that the slope of the regression line is zero in the population). Be sure to specify your null and alternative hypotheses and use an alpha of 0.05