Accounting Today identified the top accounting firms in 10 geographic regions across the United States. All 10 regions reported growth in 2016. The Southeast and Gulf Coast regions reported growth of 12.03% and 9.47%, respectively. A characteristic description of the accounting firms in the Southeast and Gulf Coast regions included the number of partners in the firm. The file AccountingPartners2 contains the number of partners.

Source: Data extracted from 2017 Top 100 Firms, Accounting Today, available at www.accountingtoday.com/the-2017-top-100-firms-and-regional-leaders.

a. At the 0.05 level of significance, is there evidence of a difference between Southeast region accounting firms and Gulf Coast accounting firms with respect to the mean number of partners?

b. Determine the p-value and interpret its meaning.

c. What assumptions do you have to make about the two populations in order to justify the use of the t test?