PROBLEM SET 4

CONTINUOUS PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION

SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION

.
1.

Heights of 10-year-old children are normally distributed with a mean of 52 inches and a
standard deviation of 4 inches.
a. Find the probability that one randomly selected 10-year-old child is taller than 54 inches.
b. Find the probability that two randomly selected 10-year-old children are both taller than
54 inches. Find the probability that the mean height of two randomly selected 10-year-old
children is greater than 54 inches.

2. The following data give the number of pets owned for a population of 4 families
Family
Number of Pets Owned

A
2

B
1

C
4

D
3

a.
Find the sampling distribution of X . The sample size is 2.
b.
Use the sampling distribution in Question a and directly recalculate the mean and
standard deviation of X . Compare the two answers. What do you conclude?

.
Part A. Uniform distribution
1.

The time it takes a student to finish a chemistry test is uniformly distributed between 50 and
70 minutes.
a. What is the probability density function for this uniform distribution?
b. Find the probability that a student will take between 40 and 60 minutes to finish the test.
c. Find the probability that a student will take no less than 55 minutes to finish the test.
d. What is the expected amount of time it takes a student to finish the test?
e. What is the variance for the amount of time it takes a student to finish the test?

Part B. Normal distribution

1.

If Z is a standard normal random variable, find the following probabilities:

a. P(Z -1.77)
b. P(Z -1.96)
c. P(0.35 Z 0.85)
d. P(-2.88 Z 2.15)
e. P(Z 1.45)

2.

If X is a normal random variable with a mean of 45 and a standard deviation of 8, find the
following probabilities:
a. P(X 50)
b. P(X 32)
c. P(37 X 48)
d. P(50 X 60)
e. P(X = 45)

3.

If Z is a standard normal random variable, find the value z for which:

a. P(0 Z z) = 0.35
b. P(z Z z) = 0.142
c. P(-z Z 0) = 0.441

4.

The recent average starting salary for new college graduates in computer information systems
is $47,500. Assume salaries are normally distributed with a standard deviation of $4,500.
a. What is the probability of a new graduate receiving a salary between $45,000 and
$50,000?
b. What is the probability of a new graduate getting a starting salary in excess of $55,000?
c. What percent of starting salaries are no more than $42,250?
d. What is the cutoff for the bottom 5% of the salaries?
e. What is the cutoff for the top 3% of the salaries?

Part C: Sampling distribution

1.

A population has a mean of 150 and a standard deviation of 40.

observations will be selected at random from the population.
a. What is the expected value of the sample mean?
b. What is the standard deviation of the sample mean?
c. What is the shape of the sampling distribution of the sample mean

A sample of 100

2.

Assume the time needed by a worker to perform a maintenance operation is normally

distributed with a mean of 70 minutes and a standard deviation of 6 minutes. What is the
probability that the average time needed by a sample of 5 workers to perform the maintenance
in between 63 minutes and 68 minutes?

3.

The manager of a restaurant believes that waiters and waitresses who introduced themselves
by telling their names will get larger tips than those who dont. In fact, she claims that
average tip for former group is 18% who while that of latter is only 15%. If tips are normally
distributed with a standard deviation of 3%, what is the probability that in a sample of 10 tips
recorded from waiters and waitresses who introduced themselves and 10 tips from waiters and
waitresses who dont, the mean of the former will exceed that of the latter?

4.

The chairman of a statistics department in a certain college believes that 70% of the
departments graduate assistantships are given to international students. A random sample of
50 graduate assistants is taken.
a. Assume that the chairman is correct and p = 0.70. What is the sampling distribution of the
sample proportion p ? Explain.
b. Find the expected value and the standard error of the sampling distribution of p .
c. What is the probability that the sample proportion p will be between 0.65 and 0.73?
d. What is the probability that the sample proportion p will be within .05 of the
population proportion p?