Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/iii/paper-36/3/a/solution

At several doses the three replicate plates differ much more than the square-root-of-mean scale expected from a Poisson distribution. For example the group at dose has sample mean about and sample variance about , rather than variance near . Its counts span a range of , compared with a Poisson standard deviation about . The dose- and dose- groups likewise have variances above their means. Thus extra plate-to-plate variation is plausible. With only three replicates per dose this is evidence suggesting overdispersion, rather than a precise determination of it; not every group has excess sample variance.

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