Question: Is the mean salary of accountants who have reached partnership status higher than that for accountants who are not partners? A sample of 15 accountants who have the partnership status showed a mean salary of $82,000 with a standard deviation of $5,500. A sample of 12 accountants who were not partners showed a mean of $78,000 with a standard deviation of $6,500. At the 0.05 significance level can we conclude that accountants at the partnership level earn larger salaries?

a. State the null and alternate hypotheses.

b. State the decision rule.

c. Compute the value of the test statistic.

d. Compute the p-value.

e. What is your decision regarding the null hypothesis? Interpret the result.