Quit smoking: the new england journal of medicine published the results of a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment to study the effect of nicotine patches and the antidepressant bupropion on quitting smoking. the target for quitting smoking was the 8th day of the experiment. in this experiment researchers randomly assigned smokers to treatments.

we conducted a hypothesis test to determine if the side effect rates are significantly different for nicotine patches versus bupropion at a 5% level of significance. (the normality conditions are met by the data.) the p-value is 0.04.

what does a p-value of 0.04 mean?

a. there is a 4% chance there is no difference in side effect rates for these two treatments.

b. if the side effect rates are the same for the two treatments, there is a 4% chance that future experiments will show differences in side effect rates greater than observed in this experiment.

c. if the side effect rates are the same for the two treatments, there is a 4% that the rates will be different in future experiments.

d. if the side effect rates are different for the two treatments, there is a 4% chance that future experiments