# t-Test

*Math & Statistics — Finicade finance glossary*

A t-test asks whether a mean differs from a hypothesised value, or whether two group means differ, when the true variance is unknown and must be estimated. It's the most-used test in applied work and the most-abused: it assumes independent observations and roughly normal means, and financial returns violate independence through volatility clustering, which inflates apparent significance.

**Also known as:** Student's t-test, t statistic, two-sample t-test

**Related terms:** [Hypothesis Test](https://finicade.com/glossary/hypothesis-test), [P-Value](https://finicade.com/glossary/p-value), [Student's t-Distribution](https://finicade.com/glossary/students-t-distribution), [Statistical Significance](https://finicade.com/glossary/statistical-significance), [Confidence Interval](https://finicade.com/glossary/confidence-interval)

Source: https://finicade.com/glossary/t-test