AP Statistics – Hoxmeier

Normal Distribution Examples Name: _______________________

Chapter 2 Notes:
1. Joanie scored a 93 on the history test and Chachi had a score of 81. The mean score was an 85 and the standard deviation of 3.62.
What are each of their z-scores? What does this tell us?

If Potsie scored an 81 on the biology exam can we compare them? Given the mean of 75 and standard deviation of 2.1 for the
biology exam, what does that mean in comparison with Joanie and Chachi?

2. A certain density curve consists of a straight line segment that begins at the origin, and has a slope of 1.

a. Sketch the density curve. What must the coordinates of the right endpoint of the segment be in order for it to be a valid
density curve?

b. Determine the median, first quartile and third quartile.

c. Relative to the median, where would you expect the mean of the distribution to be?

d. What percent of the observation lie below .5? Above 1.5?

e. Is it possible to draw a box and whisker plot using this information? If so draw it, if not, why?

3. The line segment below can be considered a density “curve”.

a. Verify that the graph above is a valid density curve.

b. Find the proportion of the values between .6 and .8.

c. Find the proportion of the values that fall between 0 and .4

d. Find the proportion of the values that fall between 0 and .2

e. Where does the median fall? In terms of the median, where does the mean fall?
4. In the year 2000, there were 125 major new automobile types available. If you look at the miles per gallon (MPG) for these
vehicles, the distributions are roughly normal. The means and standard deviations are given by:
Mean Standard Deviation
City MPG 22.37 4.77
Highyway MPG 29.09 5.46

a) The Lincoln Continental had a rating of 17 mpg city and 24 mpg highway. Which rating, city or highway, is higher compared to
the other cars?

b) The Mazda 626 had a city rating of 26 mpg. What highway rating would it have so that the city and highway ratings were the
same compared to other cars?

5. The average height of a male age 20 or over in the U.S. is 5’9” with a standard deviation of 2.8”. Assume the heights are
distributed Normally.

a) If the standard door height of a residence is 6’10”, what percent of males will have to duck to get through the door?

b) What percent of men are shorter than the average female at 5’4”?

c) What percentile would you fall in?

d) The average height of the NBA in a 2007-08 survey was found to be 6’7”. What percent of men are at least this tall?

e) What percent of men fall between 5’5” and 6” tall?

f) Between what heights do the middle 95% of men fall?

g) What is the IQR?

6. A baker knows that the daily demand for apple pies is a random variable which follows the normal distribution with mean 43.3 pies
and standard deviation 4.6 pies. Find the demand which has probability 5% of being exceeded.
7. A firm's marketing manager believes that total sales for next year will follow the normal distribution, with mean of $2.5 million
and a standard deviation of $300,000.

a. What is the probability that the firm's sales will fall within $150000 of the mean?

b. Determine the sales level that has only a 9% chance of being exceeded next year.

8. MENSA is an organization whose members possess IQs in the top 2% of the population. If IQs are normally distributed, with
mean 100 and a standard deviation of 16, what is the minimum IQ required for admission to MENSA?

9. At Heinz ketchup factory the amounts which go into bottles of ketchup are supposed to be normally distributed with mean 36 oz.
and standard deviation 0.15 oz. Once every 30 minutes a bottle is selected from the production line, and its contents are noted
precisely. If the amount of the bottle goes below 35:8 oz. or above 36:2 oz., then the bottle will be declared out of control.

a. If the process is in control, meaning µ = 36 oz and σ = 0.1 oz., find the probability that a bottle will be declared out of control.

b. Worried about customer complaints, the manufacturers decide that no more than 0.5% of bottles should be underweight. There are
two possible adjustments that can be made:

1) change the mean setting on the filling machines while leaving the standard deviation constant, or

2) leave the mean at 36 ounces and try to adjust the standard deviation.

Describe the necessary adjustments under each of these two plans, i.e. what would the new mean and standard deviation have to
be? Which do you think is more feasible? Explain.

c. Heinz is also concerned that they are wasting products by overfilling the bottles. Should they adjust the mean to be lower so that
doesn't happen? What will be a consequence of adjusting the mean of the machine lower? Given part (a) and (b), what would you
recommend the mean of the machine be set to?

10. The level of cholesterol in the blood is important because high cholesterol levels may increase the risk of heart disease. The
distribution of blood cholesterol levels for 14-year old boys is approximately N(170, 30) (measured in milligrams per deciliter of
blood). Levels above 240 mg/dl may require medical attention.

a. What percent of 14-year old boys have more than 240 mg/dl of cholesterol?

b. What percent of 14-year old boys have blood cholesterol between 170 and 240 mg/dl
11. Scores on the SAT verbal test in recent years follow approximately the N(505, 110) distribution. How high must a student score in
order to place in the top 10% of all students taking the SAT?

12. The amount of mustard dispensed from a machine is normally distributed with a mean of 0.9 ounces and a standard deviation of
0.1 ounces. If the machine is used 500 times approximately how many times will it be expected to dispense or more ounces of
mustard.

13. Professor McClimon has 184 students in her college mathematics lecture class. The scores on the midterm exam are normally
distributed with a mean of 72.3 and a standard deviation of 8.9. How many students can be expected to receive a score between 82
and 90? Express answer to the nearest student.

14. The lengths of individual shellfish in a population of 10,000 shellfish are approximately normally distributed with mean 10
centimeters and standard deviation 0.2 centimeter. Which of the following is the shortest interval that contains approximately 4,000
shellfish lengths?
(A) 0 cm to 9.949 cm
(B) 9.744 cm to 10 cm
(C) 9.744 cm to 10.256 cm
(D) 9.895 cm to 10.105 cm
(E) 9.9280 cm to 10.080 cm

15. A machine is used to fill soda bottles. The amount of soda dispensed into each bottle varies slightly. Suppose the amount of soda
dispensed into the bottles is normally distributed. If at least 99% of the bottles must have between 585 and 595 milliliters of soda, find
the greatest standard deviation, to the nearest hundredth, that can be allowed.
16. Three landmarks of baseball achievement are Ty Cobb’s batting average of .420 in 1911, Ted Williams’ .406 in 1946 and George
Brett’s .390 in 1980. These batting averages cannot be compared directly because the distribution of major league batting averages
has changed over the years. The distributions are quite symmetric and (except for outliers like these three) are reasonably normal.
While the mean batting average has been held roughly constant by rule changes and the balance between hitting and pitching, the
standard deviation has dropped over time. Here are the facts:

Decade Mean Standard Deviation

Relative to his time, which batter actually had the most impressive batting average?