Skip to main content
Hypothesis testing
Lesson 6 of 10

Significance levels and critical regions

Objective. Find a critical region and decide whether to reject H₀.

The key idea

The critical region holds the outcomes so unlikely under H₀ that they would make you reject it. Its total probability is at most the significance level.

Worked example

n = 20, p = 0.5, 5% one-tailed upper test. Is 15 in the critical region?

n = 20
Illustrated card showing n = 20
  1. 1P(X ≥ 15) under B(20, 0.5) ≈ 0.021.
  2. 20.021 < 0.05.
  3. 3So 15 lies in the critical region.

Answer: Yes — reject H₀

Practice

Each question comes with a picture and a listen button. Try it first, then reveal the answer.

Common mistake. Using the full 5% in each tail of a two-tailed test.

Your progress

Tick each step as you finish it — Continue brings you back here.

0 of 5 steps complete

My dashboard