table(a); table(b)
a
 1  2  3  4  5
12 38 46 73 81
b
 1  2  3  4  5
20 37 68 73 52

summary(a); summary(b)
a:  Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.
  1.000   3.000   4.000   3.692   5.000   5.000
b:  Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.
    1.0     3.0     3.5     3.4     4.0     5.0

t.test(a,b)

        Welch Two Sample t-test

data:  a and b
t = 2.7127, df = 497.97, p-value = 0.006905
alternative hypothesis: true difference in means
  is not equal to 0
95 percent confidence interval:
  0.0805107 0.5034893
sample estimates:
mean of x mean of y
    3.692     3.400

wilcox.test(a,b)$p.val
[1] 0.004490969

DTA = rbind(tabulate(a), tabulate(b))
ab.out = chisq.test(DTA); ab.out

        Pearson's Chi-squared test

data:  DTA
X-squared = 12.582, df = 4, p-value = 0.01351

ab.out$obs
     [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
[1,]   12   38   46   73   81
[2,]   20   37   68   73   52
ab.out$exp
     [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
[1,]   16 37.5   57   73 66.5
[2,]   16 37.5   57   73 66.5
ab.out$resi
     [,1]        [,2]      [,3] [,4]      [,5]
[1,]   -1  0.08164966 -1.456986    0  1.778104
[2,]    1 -0.08164966  1.456986    0 -1.778104