Sample Questions for final

I. A well-known brand of size D batteries has a life time that is normally

distributed with a mean of 105 hours and a standard deviation of 20 hours.
a. What proportion of these batteries has a life time of less than 95 hours?
b. If a person buys a battery of this type, what is the probability
that its life time would be between:
1. 70 and 90 hours? 2. 70 and 105 hours? 3. 90 and 125 hours?
c. Find a value a such that 89.97% of the batteries of this type will have
a life time of more than a hours.

II. Let X be a normally distributed random variable with  = 10 & = 3.

a. Evaluate each of the following probabilities:
P(2.35 < X < 5.05), P(3.01 < X < 15.88), and P(X < 2.29).
b. Find the value of a in each of the following cases:
P(X < a) = 0.975, P(X >a) = 0.975, and P(-a < Z < a) = 0.7062.

III. Suppose X is a normally distributed random variable.

a. Determine  if 2 = 81 and 13.35% of the area under the normal curve
lies to the right of 89.99.
b. Determine if  = 19 and 6.06% of the area under the normal curve lies
to the left of 14.35.

IV. (20%) a. If X is normal with mean 24 and 9% of the area under the curve
lies to the left of X = 20, determine the standard deviation of X.
b. A certain brand of batteries has a normal life with 3 days as a standard
deviation. What is the average life of these batteries if 16.6% of them work
at least four weeks?

V. (15%) The average weight of a student at LAU is assumed to be normally

distributed, with a mean of 65 kg, and a standard deviation of 5 kg. Find:
a. The probability of randomly selecting a student heavier than 60 kg?
b. The probability that a random sample of 36 students has an
average less than 63 kg?
c. The probability that the total weight of 64 students is between
4096 and 4192 kg?

VI. (20%) The weight of an airline passenger’s suitcase is normally distributed

with an average of 45 pounds and a standard deviation of 2 pounds.
a. What is the probability that a suitcase weighs more than 42.5 pounds?
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 b. What is the probability that the average weight of 16 suitcases exceeds 42.5?
c. What is the probability that the total weight of these 16 suitcases exceeds
752 pounds.
d. If 10.2% of all suitcases are overweight, find the maximum weight allowed.

VII. (17%) A vending machine pours a soft drink (normally) into plastic bottles,
of capacity 320 ml. If the mean amount discharged is 300 ml with a
standard deviation of 10, find:
a. The probability that a bottle, filled by this machine, will contain
between 290 ml and 310 ml.
b. The probability that the average content of 25 bottles, filled by this
machine, will be between 290 ml and 310 ml.
c. The probability that the average content of 25 bottles, filled by this
machine, will be between 295 ml and 305 ml.
d. How many bottles might overflow in the next 10,000 ones?
e. The volume V such that the probability is 0.9564 that the average
content of 36 bottles is greater than V.

VIII. The true proportion of citizens approving a certain government policy is to

be estimated.
a. A random sample of 200 voters is randomly selected and found to have
120 citizens favoring the policy. Construct a 98% confidence interval
for the true proportion of citizens favoring this policy.
b. What sample size is needed if we want our estimate to be within 5% of
the true proportion with probability 0.95?

IX. In order to estimate the average amount of food expenditures per week for
a family of 4, a random sample of different families is chosen and its mean
was found to be $50. Construct a confidence interval in each of the
following cases:
a. n = 49 and  = 5, at the 90% confidence level.
b. n = 36 and s = 5, at the 95% confidence level.

X. To decide on water fluoridation in a certain city, a random sample of

citizens was selected, and the opinions were recorded: 240 favored, 360
were against and 200 had no opinion regarding this issue.
a. Develop a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of all
citizens favoring water fluoridation in this city.
b. Develop a 98% confidence interval for the proportion of all
citizens who are against water fluoridation in this city.
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XI. Suppose life expectancy for a certain type of semiconductor device is
normally distributed. Give a 99% confidence interval for the average life of
such semi- conductors, when a random sample of 16 such devices showed
an average of 9950 hours with a variance of 100.

XII. A prospective purchaser of a fast food franchise is told that the daily
earnings for the franchise have a standard deviation of $90 a day. The
purchaser wishes to estimate the actual average daily earnings to within $20
with a probability of at least 0.95. How large a sample should he choose, if
such earnings are normally distributed?

XIII. The average cost of living for a husband and wife living in the Beirut area
follows a normal distribution. An official wants to estimate the true average
with a 95% confidence. He considers a sample of 35 citizens and finds their
mean to be L.L.500,000with a standard deviation of L.L.100,000. Construct
the required interval for this official.
XIV. In a random sample of size 150, Ogero finds that the proportion of
customers making regular overseas calls is 12%. Find a 98% confidence
interval for the true proportion of customers:
a. Who make regular overseas calls.
b. Who don’t make regular overseas calls.

XV. A manager wishes to estimate the national average proportion of employees

missing work due to illness (per year).
a. A random sample of 120 employees was selected and the number of
employees missing work was found to be 18. Construct a 95%
confidence interval for p.
b. What sample size should be selected to insure an estimate that is within
5% of the true proportion with probability 0.98?

XVI. Professor Brown, a first year math teacher at M.T.U. wants to estimate the
average time spent by his students doing their home work each night. He
randomly selects 20 students and finds that the mean and the standard
deviation of the time period spent (by these students) are 2.3 and 0.7 hours
respectively. Assuming that the population of study time is normal,
construct:
a. A 95% confidence interval for the mean amount of time spent studying
each night for all students.

b. If it is known that σ = 1, what would your 95% interval become?

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XVII. An agency that monitors the legal profession has noted that the variance of
lawyers' salaries has remained fairly stable with time (for the last 20 years).
Suppose the agency wishes to estimate the current average income for lawyers.
How large a sample should it take if it wants this estimate to be within
$10000 of the true average income at the 0.99 confidence level? Assume
such incomes are normally distributed with a variance of ($27000)2.

XVIII. A random sample of 210 citizens from a rural area showed that 140 of
them refused cutting of a nearby forest. Give a 98% confidence interval for
the proportion of citizens who didn't refuse cutting the nearby forest.

XIX. A random sample of 200 citizens from a rural area showed that 140 of them
refused cutting of a nearby forest. Find:
a. A point estimate for the proportion of such citizens who would refuse
cutting the forest.
b. A 99% confidence interval for the proportion of such citizens.

XX. Does evidence support the idea that the average lecture at LAU consists of
3000 words if a random sample of the lectures of 15 professors had a mean of
3472 words with a deviation of 500 words? Use  = 0.02 and assume that
lecture lengths are normal.

XXI. All the boxes of a brand detergent indicate that the content of the box is about
4 kgs. A government department receives many consumer complaints that the
boxes contain less than the indicated amount. To check these complaints, the
department buys 100 boxes and finds their mean weight to be 3.88 kgs, with
a variance of 0.3 kg2. At the 5% significance level, should the government
agency order the manufacturer to put more detergent in the boxes?

XXII. A sample of 5 students showed the following grades on a final test: 72, 80,
65, 68, and 78. Use  = 0.02 to test if there is any significant change from
last year’s average of 85.
XXIII. A researcher wants to test a newly developed computer assisted teaching
method against the classical old methods. He randomly selected a sample of
size 16 from a large, approximately normal, population whose average  = 70
with a standard deviation  = 15. The new method sample average came to be
72. Do you think this is a significant increase at the 0.05 level? Justify.

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XXIV. The average salary for public school teachers in a specific year was
reported to be $39385. A random sample of 40 such teachers showed a
mean of $37090 and a standard deviation of $5975. At the 5% level of
significance, is there sufficient evidence to conclude that the mean salary
differs from $39385?
Solution: H 0: µ = 39385
H 1: µ ≠ 39385  2-sided
n = 40, x́ = 37090, s = 5975 and α = 0.05.
39385−37090
Since we use t, |t| = 5975 = 2.429, while t c = 1.96 (2-sided)
√ 40
We thus have significant evidence to reject H 0.

XXV. A lab technician reported that the average number of students using his
lab per hour was 16. To test this hypothesis, he recorded the number of
students who used his lab, per hour, over a period of 8 hours. The record
showed: 20, 24, 18, 16, 23, 20, 23 and 16. At  = 0.05, test the claim that
the average number of students using this lab is more than 16 per hour.
State your decision clearly!
Solution: H 0: µ = 16
H 1: µ > 16  1-sided
n = 8 and α = 0.05.
Using a calculator we compute x́ = 20 and s =3.16 (σ n−1not σ n).
(20 – 16)
Since we use t, |t| = 3.16 = 3.58, while t c = 1.645
√8
We thus have significant evidence to reject H 0.

XXVI. A pharmaceutical company claims that their new product relieves at

least 85% of patients with certain allergy. The company administered
this drug to a sample of 36 patients and found that 33 were relieved. Test
this company’s claim at the 0.01 level of significance.
Solution: H 0: p = 0.85 (≥)
H 1: p < 0.85(one sided)
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n = 36, ^p= 36 = 0.92 and α = 0.01.
0.92−0.85
| Z c| = 2.326 while |Z| = 0.92(0.08) = 1.548
√ 36

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 Don’t reject H 0.

XXVII. An educator claims that the average daily salary of teachers of a certain
district is less than $60 per day. A random sample of 9 teachers showed
an average of $58. Is there a significant evidence to support the
educator's claim at the 0.05 level? Assume the distribution of such
salaries is normal with σ = 10.
Solution: H 0: µ = 60 (≤)
H 1: µ > 60 (one sided)
n = 9, x́ = 58, σ = 10 and α = 0.05.
(60 – 5 8)
| Z c| = 1.645 and |Z| = 10 = 0.6
√9
We therefore have no significant evidence to reject H 0.

XXVIII. The mean length of a small balance bar is 43 millimeters. The production
manager is suspecting that the adjustments of the machine producing the
bars have changed. He selects a sample of 12 bars and measures each.
The results are as follows:
42 39 42 45 43 40 39 41 40 42 43 42
a. Is it reasonable to conclude that there has been a change in the mean
length of the bars? Use  = 0.02 and assume that lengths of such bars
have a normal distribution. The variance of the above sample is 3.18.
b. If the population had a variance of 4, how would you conduct the
above test?
Solution: H 0: µ = 43
H 1: µ ≠ 43  2-sided
a. n = 12, s =1.78 (√ 3.18) and α = 0.02.
Using a calculator we compute x́ = 41.5
(43 – 41.5)
Since we use t, |t| = 1.78 = 2.919, while t c = 2.718 (2-sided)
√ 12
We thus have significant evidence to reject H 0.
(43 – 41.5)
b. If σ is known to be 2 (=√ 4 ), we use |Z| = 2 = 2.598, while
√ 12
Z H
| c| = 2.326 which means we reject 0 again.