Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 218 2 b Solution 2026-09-28
At lag , the plot shows the sample autocorrelation functionUnder a white noise process, each fixed nonzero-lag sample autocorrelation is approximately , so the dashed pointwise reference lines are approximately .
The first nonzero-lag bar is well above the upper line, which contradicts the zero autocorrelation expected from white noise. Since the plot then largely cuts off, an moving-average process of order one is a plausible model; with the sampling interval as the time unit this is an model.