Was there discrimination on the Titanic? Were first-classpassengers given greater
access to life boats?
The unsinkable liner Titanic collided with an iceberg on her maidenvoyage
in 1912 and sank with great loss of life. On board were 1317passengers, some of
whom had paid a very much higher fare than others for the voyage. Anot very
subtle sub-text in the most recent Titanic movie was the notionthat the first class
passengers survived at a higher rate than other passengers.
Imagine we can regard the first class passengers as a sample of thetotal population
on board at the time of the collision. There were 324 first classpassengers of whom
62% survived the sinking. In other words our sample proportion p^ =0:62 while n is
324. The proportion of survivors from the total population (allpassengers) on board
was p = 0:38:
Using a 0.05 significance level, test whether the survival rate forfirst class passengers
was greater than that for all passengers. Do the six steps of thetest.
