i need help with testing hypothesis please

[david]

an insurance company wishes to investigate the distribution of the number of accidents drivers are involved in. over a two-year period, 576 drivers are studied, and the number of drivers who got into X accidents during the two-year period are summarized in the table below:

X | 0 1 2 3 4 5 or more
______________________________________________
frequency| 229 211 93 35 7 1

test, at the α=0.05 level of significance, whether the number of accidents follows a poisson distribution

i have trouble getting started with this problem, anyone please help

 

[tkhunny]

You will need an estimate for the Poisson parameter. The Mean usually serves well.

Personally, and this is not part of the problem, I would also calculate the sample variance and see how close you get, since for the Poisson, Mean = Variance. If they are very close that should raise some confidence.

After that, you should calculate your sum of (Actual - Expected) etc. squared and think about a Chi-Square goodness of fit. You'll need to decide on the Degrees of Freedom, of course.

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What part of what I just said did you NOT know? If there was any part that you DID know, then you should not ever again have trouble getting started. It's in your brain. Let it out!

*** End of Philosophy Warning ***