Progress Test 2 (Practice 1)

1. Based upon past experience, 40% of all customers at Miller's Automotive Service
Station pay for their purchases with a credit card. If a random sample of 200 customers
is selected, what is the approximate probability that at least 75 pay with a credit card?
(Use Normal approximation to the Binomial distribution)
2. Assume that the heights of men are normally distributed with a mean of 69.8 inches and
a standard deviation of 2.1 inches. If 36 men are randomly selected, find the probability
that the mean height is greater than 70.8 inches.
3. Fifty people are selected randomly from a certain population and it is found that 14
people in the sample are over 6 feet tall. What is the point estimate of the true
proportion of people in the population who are over 6 feet tall?
4. A salesperson knows that 20% of her presentations result in sales. Use the normal
approximation formula for the Binomial distribution to find the probabilities that in the
next 60 presentations at least 9 result in sales.
5. The life in hours of a 75-watt light bulb is known to be normally distributed with a
standard deviation of 25 hours. A random sample of 20 bulbs is selected which has a
mean life of 1014 hours. How large a sample is needed if we want to be 95% confident
that the error in estimating the mean life is less than 5 hours.
6. Transportation officials report that 70% of drivers wear seat belts while driving. If we
take a random sample of 800 drivers, what is the probability that more than 579 of them
are wearing seat belts?
7. Last year, it was estimated that the professional sports players had an average salary
of 1.5 millions with a standard deviation of 0.7 million. Suppose a sample of 100 major
league players was taken. Find the approximate probability that the mean salary of
these 100 players exceeded 1.1 millions.
8. Suppose that a system contains a certain type of component whose time in years to
failure is given by the random variable T which is modeled by the exponential
distribution with the mean time to failure is 5. What is the probability that the system is
still functioning at the end of 8 years?
9. The following confidence interval is obtained for a population proportion p such that
0.817 < p < 0.855. Use these confidence interval limits to find the point estimate of p.

10. A random sample of 16 fluorescent light bulbs has a mean life of 645 hours with a
standard deviation of 31 hours. Construct a 95% confidence interval for the population
mean. Assume that the population has a normal distribution.
11. An economist is interested in studying the incomes of consumers in a particular region.
The population standard deviation is known to be $1, 500. A random sample of 50
individuals resulted in an average income of $15000. What is the width of the 95%
confidence interval?
12. Suppose a 95% confidence interval for μ turns out to (1000, 2100). Give a definition of
what it means to be 95% confident in an inference
A. 95% of the observations in the entire population fall in the given interval.
B. In repeated sampling, 95% of the intervals constructed would contain the population
mean.
C. 95% of the observations in the sample fall in the given interval.
D. In repeated sampling, the population mean would fall in the given interval 95% of the
time.
13. The random variable X has a binomial distribution with n = 100 and p = 0.3. Use the
normal approximation for the Binomial distribution to find P (X ≤ 31).
14. In a random sample of 60 computers, the mean repair cost was 150. Assume the
population standard deviation is 36. Construct a 99% confidence interval for the
population mean.
15. The amount of corn chips dispensed into a 32-ounce bag by the dispensing machine
has been identified as possessing a normal distribution with a mean of 32.5 ounces and
a standard deviation of 0.2 ounce. What chip amount represents the 67th percentile for
the bag weight distribution?
16. An economist is interested in studying the incomes of consumers in a particular region.
The population standard deviation is known to be $1, 500. A random sample of 50
individuals resulted in an average income of $15000. What total sample size would the
economist need to use for a 95% confidence interval if the width of the interval should
not be more than $100?
17. Which of the following is true about the sample distribution of the sample mean?
A. The mean of the sampling distribution is always μ.
B. The standard deviation of the sampling distribution is always σ.
C. The shape of the sampling distribution is always approximately normal.
18. Of 1000 randomly selected cased of lung cancer, 731 resulted in death within 10 years.
Calculate a 95% confidence interval on the death rate from lung cancer.
19. For a normal population with known variance σ , find the confidence level
2

corresponding to the confidence interval

σ σ
x̄ − 1.96 ≤ μ ≤ x̄ + 1.96
√n √n

20. A particular production process used to manufacture ferrite magnets used to operate
reed switches in electronic meters is known to give 8% defective magnets on average.
If 300 magnets are randomly selected, use normal approximation to Binomial/Poisson
distributions to find the probability that the number of defective magnets is greater than
24 and smaller than 30.
21. Let X̄ and X̄ denote the sample means of random samples of size n = 16 and
1 2 1

n = 25 taken from normal distribution ∼ N (μ , σ = 36), ∼ N (μ , σ = 9), respectively.

2 2
2 1 1 2 2
 Find the mean and standard deviation of the sampling distribution of X̄ 1 − X̄ 2 .

2 2
σ σ
1 2
∼ N (μ 1 − μ 2 , + )
n1 n2

22. A catalog company that receives the majority of its orders by telephone conducted a
study to determine how long customers were willing to wait on hold before ordering a
product. The length of time was found to be a random variable best approximated by an
exponential distribution with a mean equal to 3 minutes. What proportion of customers
having to hold more than 1.5 will hang up before placing an order?
23. The grade point averages for 10 randomly selected high school are listed below, which
implies a sample mean of 2.54 and a sample standard deviation of 1.11. Assume the
grade point averages are normally distributed.

2.0, 3.2, 1.8, 2.9, 0.9, 4.0, 3.3, 2.9, 3.6, 0.8

Find the 98% confidence interval for the true population mean.
24. A survey of 300 union members in New York State Republican candidate for governor.
Construct the 98% confidence interval for the true population proportion of all New York
State union members who favor the Republican candidate.
25. The amount of time required for an oil and filter change on an automobile is normally
distributed with a mean of 45 minutes and a standard deviation of 10 minutes. A random
sample of 16 cars is selected. What is the probability that the sample mean is between
45 and 52 minutes?

26. Which of the following statements is false about the t distribution?

A. The t distribution is bell-shaped distribution.
B. There is little difference between the t distribution and a standard normal distribution
when sample size is large enough.
C. The t distribution has less area in tails and more in center than does the
standardized normal distribution.
D. The t distribution is the distribution with median equals to 0.
27. The score of a final exam in Statistics are normally distributed with a mean of 73 and a
standard deviation of 7.8. If 24 students are randomly selected, find the probability that
the mean of their test score is greater than 78.
28. If you want to be 95% confident of estimating the population proportion to within a
sampling error of ±0.05 and there is historical evidence that the population proportion is
approximately 0.6. What the sample size is needed?
29. Which of the following statements is false about the width of a confidence interval
estimate for a proportion?
A. wider when the sample proportion is 0.8 than when the sample proportion is 0.7.
B. wider for 97% confidence level than for 90% confidence level.
C. wider for a sample size of 100 than for a sample size of 120.
30. 34 packages are randomly selected from packages received by a parcel service. The
sample has a mean weight of 25.9 pounds. What is the 95% confidence interval for the
 true mean weight of all packages received by the parcel service?
31. Suppose that the random variable X has an exponential distribution with λ = 1.5. Find
the mean and standard deviation of X.
32. Currently, quarters have weights that are normally distributed with a mean of 6.35g and
a standard deviation of 0.5g. If 280 different quarters are inserted into a vending
machine, describe the sampling distribution of the sample mean weight.
33. A random sample of size n = 16 is selected from a normal population with a mean of
1

75 and a standard deviation of 8. A second random sample of size n = 9 is taken from

2

another normal population with a mean of 70 and a standard deviation of 12. Let X̄ and 1

X̄ be the two sample means, respectively. Find P (X̄ − X̄ ) > 5.5

2 1 2

34. Weights of women in one age group are normally distributed with a standard deviation
of 13 lbs. A researcher wishes to estimate the mean weight of all women in this age
group. Find how large a sample must be drawn in order to be 90% confident that the
sample mean will not differ from the population mean by more than 3.5 lbs.
35. A pollster wishes to estimate the proportion of United States voters who favor capital
punishment. How large a sample is needed in order to be 95% confident that the
sample proportion will not differ from the true proportion by more than 3%?
36. A random sample of 400 adult residents of Orange County found that 320 were in favor
of increasing the highway speed limit to 75 mph, while another sample of 300 adult
resident of Pierce County found that 210 were in favor of the increased speed limit.
Construct a 95% confidence interval on the difference in the two population proportions
p − p of adults who favor increased speed.
1 2

37. Construct a 90% confidence interval for the population mean. Assume the population
has a normal distribution, A sample of 15 randomly selected students has a grade point
average of 2.86 with a standard deviation of 0.78.
38. Two different formulations of an oxygenated motor fuel are being tested to study their
road octane numbers. The variances of road octane number for formulations 1 and 2 is
σ = 1.5 and σ = 1.2, respectively. Two random samples of sizes n = 15 and n = 20
2 2
1 2
1 2

are tested, and the mean road octane numbers observed are X̄ = 89.6 and X̄ = 92.5.
1 2

Construct a 95% confidence interval for the difference in the means of two populations.
39. Suppose X has an exponential distribution with λ = 2, Which of the following
statements is true?
A. P (X ≥ 2) = 0.0183
B. P (X ≤ 0) = 0
C. P (X ≤ 1) = 0.8647
D. All of these above statements are true
40. An electrical firm manufactures a certain type of light bulb that has a mean light of 1800
hours and a standard deviation of 200 hours. Find the probability that a random sample
of 100 bulbs will have an average life of more than 1825 hours.
41. If you were constructing a 99% confidence interval of the population mean based on a
sample of n = 25 where the standard deviation of the sample s = 0.05. The percentage
points will be? (Hint: what probability distribution will be used to construct the CI)
42. Suppose X has a Poisson distribution with a mean of 1000. Use the normal
approximation for the Poisson distribution to find P (X < 950).
43. A random sample of 40 students has a mean annual earnings of $3210. Assume the
population standard deviation is 677. Construct a 95% confidence interval for the
population mean.
44. In a recent study of 22 eighth-grade students, the mean number of hours per week that
they watched television was 19.6 with a standard deviation of 5.8 hours. Construct a
90% confidence interval for the population mean. Assume the population has a normal

distribution.
45. From a prior study, the population proportion p is estimated by 0.6. What sample size is
needed to be 99% confident that the point estimate of p will be within 0.2 around the
population p.
46. Let X represent the amount of time it takes a student to park in the library parking lot at
the university. It is known that the distribution of parking times can be modeled using
exponential distribution with the mean time of 6 minutes. Find the probability that it will
take a randomly selected student between 2 and 12v minutes to park in the library
parking lot.
47. A nurse at a local hospital is interested in estimating the birth weight of infants. How
large a sample must she select if she desires to be 90% confident that the true mean is
within 4 ounces of the sample mean? The standard deviation of all birth weights is
known to be 6 ounces.
48. The following estimation is

^
p(1 ^
− p)
^ + z 0.05 √
p
n

A. 90% upper confidence-bound on population proportion p.

B. 95% upper confidence-bound on population proportion p.
C. 90% lower confidence-bound on population proportion p.
D. 95% upper confidence-bound on population proportion p.
49. To determine the difference, if any, between two brands of radial tires, 12 tires of each
brand are tested. Assume that the lifetimes of both brands of tires come from the same
normal distribution N (μ, σ = 3300). Compute P (X̄ − Ȳ < −2500).
2

50. The brightness of a television picture tube can be evaluated by measuring the amount
of current required to achieve a particular brightness level. A sample of 20 tubes results
in x̄ = 517.2 and s = 17.7. Find a 99% CI on mean current required.
51. The product manager for a large retail store has recently stated that average purchase
per visit for the store's customers is between $33 and $65. What is the width of this
confidence interval estimate?
52. A catalog company, which receives the majority of its orders by telephone conducted a
study to determine how long customers were willing to wait on hold before ordering a
product. The length of waiting time was found to be a random variable which is best
approximated by an exponential distribution with a mean equal to 3 minutes. What
 proportion of customers having to hold more than 4.5 minutes will hang up before
placing an order?
53. A random sample of 400 adult residents of Blue County found that 320 were in favor of
increasing the highway speed limit to 75 mph, while another sample of 300 adult
residents of Red County found that 210 were in favor of the increased speed limit.
Construct a 90% confidence interval for the difference between two population
proportions p − p of adults who favor increased speed.
1 2

54. At a computer manufacturing company, the actual size of computer chips is normally
distributed with a mean of 1 centimeter and a standard deviation of 0.1 centimeter. A
random sample of 12 computer chips is taken. What is the probability that the sample
mean will be between 0.99 and 1.01 centimeters?
55. It is desired to estimate the average total compensation of CEOs in the service industry.
Data were randomly collected from 18 CEOs and the 97% confidence interval was
calculated to be (2181260, 5836180). Which of the following interpretations is correct?
A. We are 97% that the average total compensation of all CEOs in the service industry
falls into the interval (2181260, 5836180).
B. We are 97% confident that the mean of the sampled CEOs falls into the interval
(2181260, 5836180).

C. In the population of service industry, 97% of CEOs will have the total compensations
that fall into the interval (2181260, 5836180).
D. 97% of the sampled total compensation values fall into the interval
(2181260, 5836180) .
56. Determine the probability density function f (x) if the cumulative distribution function
F (x) of a continuous random variable X is given by
(
F (x) = 1 − e 5x), x > 0

57. Suppose a 90% confidence interval for a population mean turns out to be (85.45, 100.58)
. In fact, in order to obtain a useful inferences from the data, it is desired to reduce the
width of the confidence interval. Which of the following statements will result in a
reduced interval width?
A. Increase the sample size.
B. Increase the confidence level.
C. Increase the population mean.
D. Increase the sample mean.