Question

Take a look at the statement below:

Fish meal is better than artificial fertilizers.

How could this statement be revised to make it a hypothesis?
Fish meal is safer than artificial fertilizers, but it does not make plants grow.
Fish meal is a better fertilizer than artificial fertilizer because fish meal is natural.
Plants that are fertilized with fish meal will grow taller than plants that receive artificial fertilizer.
Plants that receive artificial fertilizer will be better than plants that receive fish meal

Answer 1

The best choice is statement 3: "Plants that are fertilized with fish meal will grow taller than plants that receive artificial fertilizer."

Why: it’s specific and testable — it names the treatment (fish meal vs artificial fertilizer), the measurable outcome (plant height), and implies a clear direction for comparison.

How to make it even better (more precise/testable):
- Specify the plant species, amount/frequency of fertilizer, timeframe, and how you’ll measure height.
Example improved hypothesis: "Tomato plants fertilized with 50 g/m² fish meal will be taller after 8 weeks than tomato plants fertilized with an equal-nitrogen dose of 10-10-10 NPK artificial fertilizer, when grown under identical greenhouse conditions."

Also state the null hypothesis for clarity:
- Null hypothesis: "There is no difference in mean height between plants fertilized with fish meal and those fertilized with artificial fertilizer."

Notes on the other options:
- 1 and 2 are vague or include untestable terms ("safer", "natural") or contradictory claims.
- 4 uses the vague term "better" and doesn’t specify how "better" is measured.