Killing weeds A biologist would like to determine which of two brands of weed killer, X or Y, is less likely to harm the plants in a garden at the university. Before spraying near the plants, the biologist decides to conduct an experiment using24individual plants. Which of the following two plans for randomly assigning the treatments should the biologist use? Why?

Plan A: Choose the12healthiest-looking plants. Then flip a coin. If it lands heads, apply Brand X weed killer to these plants and Brand Y weed killer to the remaining12plants. If it lands tails, do the opposite.

Plan B: Choose12of the24plants at random. Apply Brand X weed killer to those12plants and Brand Y weed killer to the remaining12plants.

Short Answer

Expert verified

Plan B should be used because it follows the principle of random assignment.

Step by step solution

01

Given Information

We are given that the biologist wants to check whether from X or Y which will harm the plans, and that they have two plans, Plan A and Plan B, and we have to find out which plan is following random assignment.

02

Explanation

According to the question, a biologist has to choose the plan that follows random assignment. Random assignment means that the particular should be choose randomly but in Plan A twelve plants are choose by seeing their healthiness which means randomization is not present here while in Plan B all twenty four plants are taken and twelve are given X weed while other are given Y weed which means randomly plants are chosen.

Hence, Plan B is the correct way.

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