Editing One- and two-tailed tests (section)

== Specific tests ==
If the test statistic follows a [[Student's t-distribution|Student's ''t''-distribution]] in the null hypothesis – which is common where the underlying variable follows a [[normal distribution]] with unknown scaling factor, then the test is referred to as a one-tailed or two-tailed [[Student's t-test|''t''-test]]. If the test is performed using the actual population mean and variance, rather than an estimate from a sample, it would be called a one-tailed or two-tailed [[Z-test|''Z''-test]].

The [[Quantile function#Applications|statistical tables]] for ''t'' and for ''Z'' provide [[critical value (statistics)|critical value]]s for both one- and two-tailed tests. That is, they provide the critical values that cut off an entire region at one or the other end of the sampling distribution as well as the critical values that cut off the regions (of half the size) at both ends of the sampling distribution.