Section 8.

2 Estimating a Population ­Proportion 505

Whelks often drill into mussels, but this behavior 36. Teens’ texting A Pew Internet and American Life

4
STEP
appears to be more or less common in different Project survey found that 392 of 799 randomly
locations. Researchers collected whelk eggs from ­selected teens reported texting with their friends
the coast of Oregon, raised the whelks in the labora- every day.
tory, then put each whelk in a container with some
(a) Calculate and interpret a 95% confidence ­interval
delicious mussels. Only 9 of 98 whelks drilled into a
for the population proportion p that would report
mussel.11 The researchers want to estimate the pro-
texting with their friends every day.
portion p of Oregon whelks that will spontaneously
drill into mussels. (b) Is it plausible that the true proportion of American
teens who text with their friends every day is 0.45?
31. 98% confidence Find z* for a 98% confidence
Use your result from part (a) to support your answer.
pg 497 interval using Table A or your calculator. Show your
method. 37. Binge drinking Describe a possible source of error
32. 93% confidence Find z* for a 93% confidence that is not included in the margin of error for the
interval using Table A or your calculator. Show your 99% confidence interval in Exercise 35.
method. 38. Teens’ texting Describe a possible source of error
33. Going to the prom Tonya wants to estimate what that is not included in the margin of error for the
proportion of her school’s seniors plan to attend the 95% confidence interval in Exercise 36.
prom. She interviews an SRS of 50 of the 750 seniors 39. How common is SAT coaching? A random sample
in her school and finds that 36 plan to go to the pg 500 of students who took the SAT college entrance
prom. examination twice found that 427 of the respondents
(a) Identify the population and parameter of interest. had paid for coaching courses and that the remain-

4
STEP
ing 2733 had not.14 Construct and interpret a 99%
(b) Check conditions for constructing a confidence confidence interval for the proportion of coaching
interval for the parameter. among students who retake the SAT.
(c) Construct a 90% confidence interval for p. Show 40. 2010 begins In January 2010 a Gallup Poll asked a
your method.
4
STEP
random sample of adults, “In general, are you satisfied
(d) Interpret the interval in context. or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the
United States at this time?” In all, 256 said that they
34. Reporting cheating What proportion of students were satisfied and the remaining 769 said they were
are willing to report cheating by other students? A not. Construct and interpret a 90% confidence inter-
student project put this question to an SRS of 172 val for the proportion of adults who are satisfied with
undergraduates at a large university: “You witness how things are going.
two students cheating on a quiz. Do you go to the
professor?” Only 19 answered “Yes.”12 41. Equality for women? Have efforts to promote equal-
ity for women gone far enough in the United States?
(a) Identify the population and parameter of ­interest. A poll on this issue by the cable network MSNBC
(b) Check conditions for constructing a confidence contacted 1019 adults. A newspaper article about the
interval for the parameter. poll said, “Results have a margin of sampling error of
plus or minus 3 percentage points.”15
(c) Construct a 99% confidence interval for p. Show
your method. (a) The news article said that 65% of men, but only
43% of women, think that efforts to promote equality
(d) Interpret the interval in context. have gone far enough. Explain why we do not have
35. Binge drinking In a recent National Survey of Drug enough information to give confidence intervals for
pg 498 Use and Health, 2312 of 5914 randomly selected men and women separately.
full-time U.S. college students were classified as (b) Would a 95% confidence interval for women alone

4
STEP binge drinkers.13 have a margin of error less than 0.03, about equal to
(a) Calculate and interpret a 99% confidence ­interval 0.03, or greater than 0.03? Why? (You see that the
for the population proportion p that are binge news article’s statement about the margin of error for
drinkers. poll results is a bit misleading.)
(b) A newspaper article claims that 45% of full-time U.S. 42. A TV poll A television news program conducts a
­college students are binge drinkers. Use your result call-in poll about a proposed city ban on handgun
from part (a) to comment on this claim. ownership. Of the 2372 calls, 1921 oppose the ban.
 506 CHAPTER 8 E s t i m at i n g w i t h C o n f i d e n ce

The station, following recommended practice, makes in the Gallup Poll Panel of households, aged 13 to 17.
a confidence statement: “81% of the Channel 13 For results based on this sample, one can say . . . that
Pulse Poll sample opposed the ban. We can be 95% the maximum error attributable to sampling and other
confident that the true proportion of citizens opposing random effects is ±3 percentage points. In addition
a handgun ban is within 1.6% of the sample result.” Is to sampling error, question wording and practical dif-
the station’s conclusion justified? Explain. ficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or
bias into the findings of public opinion polls.16
43. Can you taste PTC? PTC is a substance that has
pg 502 a strong bitter taste for some people and is tasteless (a) We omitted the confidence level from the ­footnote.
for others. The ability to taste PTC is inherited. About Use what you have learned to determine the confi-
75% of Italians can taste PTC, for example. You want dence level, assuming that Gallup took an SRS.
to estimate the proportion of Americans who have at
(b) Give an example of a “practical difficulty” that could
least one Italian grandparent and who can taste PTC.
lead to biased results for this survey.
(a) How large a sample must you test to estimate the 48. Gambling and the NCAA Gambling is an issue of
proportion of PTC tasters within 0.04 with 90% great concern to those involved in college athletics.
confidence? Answer this question using the 75% Because of this concern, the National Collegiate
estimate as the guessed value for p^ . Athletic Association (NCAA) surveyed randomly
(b) Answer the question in part (a) again, but this time selected student athletes concerning their gambling-
use the conservative guess p^ = 0.5. By how much do related behaviors.17 Of the 5594 Division I male
the two sample sizes differ? athletes in the survey, 3547 reported participation
in some gambling behavior. This includes playing
44. School vouchers A national opinion poll found that cards, betting on games of skill, buying lottery tickets,
44% of all American adults agree that parents should betting on sports, and similar activities. A report of
be given vouchers that are good for education at any this study cited a 1% margin of error.
public or private school of their choice. The result
was based on a small sample. (a) The confidence level was not stated in the report.
Use what you have learned to find the confidence
(a) How large an SRS is required to obtain a margin level, assuming that the NCAA took an SRS.
of error of 0.03 (that is, ±3%) in a 99% confidence
­interval? Answer this question using the previous (b) The study was designed to protect the anonymity
poll’s result as the guessed value for p^ . of the student athletes who responded. As a result,
it was not possible to calculate the number of stu-
(b) Answer the question in part (a) again, but this time dents who were asked to respond but did not. How
use the conservative guess p^ = 0.5. By how much do does this fact affect the way that you interpret the
the two sample sizes differ? results?
45. Election polling Gloria Chavez and Ronald Flynn
are the candidates for mayor in a large city. We want to Multiple choice: Select the best answer for Exercises 49
estimate the proportion p of all registered voters in the to 52.
city who plan to vote for Chavez with 95% confidence 49. A Gallup Poll found that only 28% of American
and a margin of error no greater than 0.03. How large a adults expect to inherit money or valuable posses-
random sample do we need? Show your work. sions from a relative. The poll’s margin of error was
±3 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
46. Starting a nightclub A college student organization
This means that
wants to start a nightclub for students under the age
of 21. To assess support for this proposal, they will (a) the poll used a method that gets an answer within 3%
select an SRS of students and ask each respondent if of the truth about the population 95% of the time.
he or she would patronize this type of establishment.
(b) the percent of all adults who expect an inheritance is
What sample size is required to obtain a 90% confi-
between 25% and 31%.
dence interval with an approximate margin of error
of 0.04? Show your work. (c) if Gallup takes another poll on this issue, the results
of the second poll will lie between 25% and 31%.
47. Teens and their TV sets According to a Gallup Poll
report, 64% of teens aged 13 to 17 have TVs in their (d) there’s a 95% chance that the percent of all adults
rooms. Here is part of the footnote to this report: who expect an inheritance is between 25% and 31%.
These results are based on telephone interviews with a (e) Gallup can be 95% confident that between 25% and
randomly selected national sample of 1028 teenagers 31% of the sample expect an inheritance.
 Section 8.3 Estimating a Population Mean 507

50. Most people can roll their tongues, but many can’t. Hour Number of accidents Hour Number of accidents
The ability to roll the tongue is genetically deter-
1 5 13 21
mined. Suppose we are interested in determining
2 8 14 12
what proportion of students can roll their tongues.
3 17 15 10
We test a simple random sample of 400 students
4 31 16 1
and find that 317 can roll their tongues. The mar-
5 24 17 0
gin of error for a 95% confidence interval for the
6 18 18 1
true proportion of tongue rollers among students is
7 12 19 3
closest to
8 7 20 21
(a) 0.0008. (c) 0.03. (e) 0.05. 9 1 21 23
10 0 22 18
(b) 0.02. (d) 0.04.
11 2 23 11
51. You want to design a study to estimate the propor- 12 14 24 2
tion of students at your school who agree with the
53. Accidents happen (1.2, 3.1)
statement, “The student government is an effective
organization for expressing the needs of students to (a) Construct a plot that displays the distribution of the
the administration.” You will use a 95% confidence number of accidents effectively.
interval, and you would like the margin of error to be
(b) Construct a plot that shows the relationship between
0.05 or less. The minimum sample size required is
the number of accidents and the time when they
(a) 22. (b) 271. (c) 385. (d) 769. (e) 1795. ­occurred.
52. A newspaper reporter asked an SRS of 100 residents (c) Describe something that the plot in part (a) tells you
in a large city for their opinion about the mayor’s about the data that the plot in part (b) does not.
job performance. Using the results from the sample,
(d) Describe something that the plot in part (b) tells you
the C% confidence interval for the proportion of all
about the data that the plot in part (a) does not.
residents in the city who approve of the mayor’s job
performance is 0.565 to 0.695. What is the value of C? 54. Accidents happen (1.3) Plant managers are
concerned that the number of accidents may be
(a) 82 (b) 86 (c) 90 (d) 95 (e) 99
significantly higher during the midnight to 8:00 a.m.
Exercises 53 and 54 refer to the following setting. The fol- shift than during the 4:00 p.m. to midnight shift.
lowing table displays the number of accidents at a factory What would you tell them? Give appropriate statisti-
during each hour of a 24-hour shift (1 = 1:00 a.m.). cal evidence to support your conclusion.

8.3 Estimating a Population Mean

What You Will Learn By the end of the section, you should be able to:
• State and check the Random, 10%, and Normal/ • Determine critical values for calculating a C% confidence
Large Sample conditions for constructing a confidence interval for a population mean using a table or technology.
­interval for a population mean. • Construct and interpret a confidence interval for a
• Explain how the t distributions are different from the population mean.
standard Normal distribution and why it is necessary • Determine the sample size required to obtain a C%
to use a t distribution when calculating a confidence confidence interval for a population mean with a
interval for a population mean. ­specified margin of error.