Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2001 / iii / Paper 29 / 1 / c / i / Solution

If both groups share the same survival function and the common fit is adequate, their complete Cox–Snell residuals have the same unit exponential distribution. Under independent censoring in each group, both groupwise Kaplan–Meier estimators should therefore be close to $e^{-u}$ and to each other, subject to ordinary sampling variation and the number of subjects still at risk. Different censoring patterns can change precision without changing the residual survival target.