A hypothesis test is a statistical method used to determine whether there is enough evidence in a sample to infer that a certain condition holds true for the entire population. It begins with the formulation of two competing hypotheses: the null hypothesis (), which represents the status quo or no effect, and the alternative hypothesis (), which suggests a change or effect. The test uses sample data to calculate a test statistic, which is compared to a critical value or used to compute a p-value. If the p-value is lower than a predetermined significance level (), the null hypothesis is rejected, suggesting that the alternative hypothesis is more likely to be true.