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Confidence Interval Solutions

This document provides examples of constructing 95% confidence intervals from sample data and discusses their appropriate interpretation. It also addresses assumptions needed to make valid statistical inferences from samples to populations. Specifically, it demonstrates how to calculate confidence intervals for mean rent prices from a sample of apartments and mean fuel efficiency from a driver's records. It notes that independence is problematic for inferring fuel efficiency but Craiglist apartment listings are appropriately inferred.

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RonnieMaeMaullion
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346 views2 pages

Confidence Interval Solutions

This document provides examples of constructing 95% confidence intervals from sample data and discusses their appropriate interpretation. It also addresses assumptions needed to make valid statistical inferences from samples to populations. Specifically, it demonstrates how to calculate confidence intervals for mean rent prices from a sample of apartments and mean fuel efficiency from a driver's records. It notes that independence is problematic for inferring fuel efficiency but Craiglist apartment listings are appropriately inferred.

Uploaded by

RonnieMaeMaullion
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Confidence Interval Solutions

1. You want to rent an unfurnished one-bedroom apartment in Durham, NC


next year. The mean monthly rent for a random sample of 60 apartments
advertised on Craig’s List (a website that lists apartments for rent) is
$1000. Assume a population standard deviation of $200. Construct a 95%
confidence interval.

($1000 – 1.96*$200/sqrt(60), $1000 + 1.96*$200/sqrt(60))

($949.39, $1050.61)

We are 95% confident that the interval ($949.39, $1050.61)


covers the true mean monthly rent of Durham apartments listed on
Craig’s List.

2. To what population of apartments can you appropriately infer from your


sample in #1?

We can most accurately infer to Durham apartments listed on Craig’s List.


We should not infer to all apartments in Durham because we do not know
if apartments on Craig’s List are representative of all apartments in
Durham.

3. How large a sample of one-bedroom apartments above would be needed to


estimate the population mean within plus or minus $50 with 90%
confidence?

The z multiplier for a 90% confidence interval is 1.645. We want


z*σ/sqrt(n) to equal $50.
𝝈 𝟏. 𝟔𝟒𝟓 ∗ 𝟐𝟎𝟎 𝟑𝟐𝟗
$𝟓𝟎 = 𝒛 ∗ = =
𝒏 𝒏 𝒏

Solve for n. sqrt(n) = 329/50 = 6.58. Square both sides and you get an n
equal to 43.3. To calculate a margin of error +/- $50, you would need to
randomly sample 44 rental apartments on Craig’s List.
4. Duncan Jones kept careful records of the fuel efficiency of his car. After
the first 100 times he filled up the tank, he found the mean was 23.4 miles
per gallon (mpg) with a population standard deviation of 0.9
mpg. Compute the 95 percent confidence interval for his mpg.

(23.4 – 1.96*0.9/sqrt(100), 23.4 + 1.96*0.9/sqrt(100))

We are 95% confident that the interval (23.22 mpg, 23.58 mpg) includes
the true mean mpg of Duncan’s automobile.

5. Which of the assumptions listed above might be problematic in making


inference to the population in Question 4?

The data likely do not meet the independence assumption. Most likely
there is serial correlation in the observed mpg (patterning of mpg
through time because of car age, serially correlated weather, etc.). A
confidence interval is probably not the appropriate tool to make
inferences about the true mean mpg.

6. True or False: The population mean (μ) is a random variable that will fall
within a confidence interval with 95% probability (with repeated
sampling).

FALSE. The population mean is NOT a random variable but a


population parameter. The population parameter has one true value (it
does not shift). The confidence interval shifts based on the random
sampling process. With repeated sampling, 95% of the confidence
intervals will include the true population mean.

7. True or False: With all else constant, an increase in population standard


deviation will shorten the length of a confidence interval.

FALSE. With all else constant, increasing the population standard


deviation will lengthen the confidence interval.

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