Exam 8: Confidence Interval Estimation

Which of the following is not true about the Student's t distribution?

The standardized normal distribution is used to develop a confidence interval estimate of the population proportion when the sample size is sufficiently large.

Sampling error equals half the width of a confidence interval.

TABLE 8-13 A sales and marketing management magazine conducted a survey on salespeople cheating on their expense reports and other unethical conduct. In the survey on 200 managers, 58% of the managers have caught salespeople cheating on an expense report, 50% have caught salespeople working a second job on company time, 22% have caught salespeople listing a "strip bar" as a restaurant on an expense report, and 19% have caught salespeople giving a kickback to a customer. -Referring to Table 8-13, construct a 95% confidence interval estimate of the population proportion of managers who have caught salespeople cheating on an expense report.

TABLE 8-11 A university wanted to find out the percentage of students who felt comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students. A surveyed of 2,800 students was conducted and the students were asked if they felt comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students. The results were 1,344 answered "Yes" and 1,456 answered "no." -Referring to Table 8-11, the critical value for a 99% confidence interval for this sample is ________.

TABLE 8-6 After an extensive advertising campaign, the manager of a company wants to estimate the proportion of potential customers that recognize a new product. She samples 120 potential consumers and finds that 54 recognize this product. She uses this sample information to obtain a 95% confidence interval that goes from 0.36 to 0.54. -Referring to Table 8-6, the parameter of interest is 54/120 = 0.45.

Suppose a 95% confidence interval for μ has been constructed. If it is decided to take a larger sample and to decrease the confidence level of the interval, then the resulting interval width would ________. (Assume that the sample statistics gathered would not change very much for the new sample.)

TABLE 8-3 To become an actuary, it is necessary to pass a series of 10 exams, including the most important one, an exam in probability and statistics. An insurance company wants to estimate the mean score on this exam for actuarial students who have enrolled in a special study program. They take a sample of 8 actuarial students in this program and determine that their scores are: 2, 5, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, and 7. This sample will be used to calculate a 90% confidence interval for the mean score for actuarial students in the special study program. -Referring to Table 8-3, if we use the same sample information to obtain a 95% confidence interval, the resulting interval would be narrower than the one obtained here with 90% confidence.

TABLE 8-3 To become an actuary, it is necessary to pass a series of 10 exams, including the most important one, an exam in probability and statistics. An insurance company wants to estimate the mean score on this exam for actuarial students who have enrolled in a special study program. They take a sample of 8 actuarial students in this program and determine that their scores are: 2, 5, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, and 7. This sample will be used to calculate a 90% confidence interval for the mean score for actuarial students in the special study program. -Referring to Table 8-3, the mean of the sample is ________, while the standard deviation of the sample is ________.

TABLE 8-6 After an extensive advertising campaign, the manager of a company wants to estimate the proportion of potential customers that recognize a new product. She samples 120 potential consumers and finds that 54 recognize this product. She uses this sample information to obtain a 95% confidence interval that goes from 0.36 to 0.54. -Referring to Table 8-6, it is possible that the true proportion of people that recognize the product is between 0.36 and 0.54.

TABLE 8-5 A sample of salary offers (in thousands of dollars) given to management majors is: 48, 51, 46, 52, 47, 48, 47, 50, 51, and 59. Using this data to obtain a 95% confidence interval resulted in an interval from 47.19 to 52.61. -Referring to Table 8-5, a 99% confidence interval for the mean of the population from the same sample would be wider than 47.19 to 52.61.

A university system enrolling hundreds of thousands of students is considering a change in the way students pay for their education. Currently, the students pay $50 per credit hour. The university system administrators are contemplating charging each student a set fee of $7,000 per quarter, regardless of how many credit hours each takes. To see if this proposal would be economically feasible, the administrators would like to know how many credit hours, on the average, each student takes per quarter. A random sample of 250 students yields a mean of 14.1 credit hours per quarter and a standard deviation of 2.3 credit hours per quarter. Suppose the administration wanted to estimate the mean to within 0.1 hours at 95% reliability and assumed that the sample standard deviation provided a good estimate for the population standard deviation. How large a total sample would they need to take?

TABLE 8-4 The actual voltages of power packs labeled as 12 volts are as follows: 11.77, 11.90, 11.64, 11.84, 12.13, 11.99, and 11.77. -Referring to Table 8-4, a confidence interval for this sample would be based on the t distribution with ________ degrees of freedom.

An economist is interested in studying the incomes of consumers in a particular region. The population standard deviation is known to be $1,000. A random sample of 50 individuals resulted in an average income of $15,000. 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?

As an aid to the establishment of personnel requirements, the director of a hospital wishes to estimate the mean number of people who are admitted to the emergency room during a 24-hour period. The director randomly selects 64 different 24-hour periods and determines the number of admissions for each. For this sample, = 19.8 and S² = 25. Using the sample standard deviation as an estimate for the population standard deviation, what size sample should the director choose if she wishes to estimate the mean number of admissions per 24-hour period to within 1 admission with 99% reliability?

TABLE 8-8 The president of a university would like to estimate the proportion of the student population who owns a personal computer. In a sample of 500 students, 417 own a personal computer. -Referring to Table 8-8, we are 99% confident that between 79.11% and 87.69% of the student population own a personal computer.

The difference between the lower limit of a confidence interval and the point estimate used in constructing the confidence interval is called the sampling error.

TABLE 8-6 After an extensive advertising campaign, the manager of a company wants to estimate the proportion of potential customers that recognize a new product. She samples 120 potential consumers and finds that 54 recognize this product. She uses this sample information to obtain a 95% confidence interval that goes from 0.36 to 0.54. -Referring to Table 8-6, 95% of the time, the proportion of people that recognize the product will fall between 0.36 and 0.54.

A major department store chain is interested in estimating the average amount its credit card customers spent on their first visit to the chain's new store in the mall. Fifteen credit card accounts were randomly sampled and analyzed with the following results: = $50.50 and S² = 400. Construct a 95% confidence interval for the average amount its credit card customers spent on their first visit to the chain's new store in the mall assuming that the amount spent follows a normal distribution.

A random sample of 50 provides a sample mean of 31 with a standard deviation of S=14. The upper bound of a 90% confidence interval estimate of the population mean is 34.32.