Exam 8: Confidence Interval Estimation

TABLE 8-2 A quality control engineer is interested in the mean length of sheet insulation being cut automatically by machine. The desired length of the insulation is 12 feet. It is known that the standard deviation in the cutting length is 0.15 feet. A sample of 70 cut sheets yields a mean length of 12.14 feet. This sample will be used to obtain a 99% confidence interval for the mean length cut by machine. -Referring to Table 8-2, the confidence interval is valid only if the lengths cut are normally distributed.

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, the sampling error of a 95% confidence interval estimate of the population proportion of managers who have caught salespeople cheating on an expense report is ________.

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 99% confidence interval for the mean voltage of the power packs is from ________ to ________.

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, the sampling error of a 95% confidence interval estimate of the population proportion of managers who have caught salespeople working a second job on company time is ________.

A 99% confidence interval estimate can be interpreted to mean that

Holding the sample size fixed, increasing the level of confidence in a confidence interval will necessarily lead to a wider confidence interval.

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 to the manager is the proportion of potential customers in this sample that recognize the new product.

Private colleges and universities rely on money contributed by individuals and corporations for their operating expenses. Much of this money is put into a fund called an endowment, and the college spends only the interest earned by the fund. A recent survey of 8 private colleges in the United States revealed the following endowments (in millions of dollars): 60.2, 47.0, 235.1, 490.0, 122.6, 177.5, 95.4, and 220.0. What value will be used as the point estimate for the mean endowment of all private colleges in the United States?

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 parameter of interest is the total number of students in the population who feel comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.

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, it is possible that the 95% confidence interval calculated from the data will not contain the population proportion of managers who have caught salespeople cheating on an expense report.

The difference between the sample mean and the population mean is called the sampling error.

A university dean is interested in determining the proportion of students who receive some sort of financial aid. Rather than examine the records for all students, the dean randomly selects 200 students and finds that 118 of them are receiving financial aid. If the dean wanted to estimate the proportion of all students receiving financial aid to within 3% with 99% reliability, how many students would need to be sampled?

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, the critical value for a 95% confidence interval estimate of the population proportion of managers who have caught salespeople cheating on an expense report is ________.

The width of a confidence interval equals twice the sampling error.

The confidence interval obtained will always correctly estimate the population parameter.

TABLE 8-12 The president of a university is concerned that the percentage of students who have cheated on an exam is higher than the 1% acceptable level. A confidential random sample of 1,000 students from a population of 7,000 revealed that 6 of them said that they had cheated on an exam during the last semester. -Referring to Table 8-12, using on the 90% one-sided confidence interval, the superintendent can be 85% confident that no more than 1% of the students at the university had cheated on an exam during the last semester.

A quality control engineer is interested in estimating the proportion of defective items coming off a production line. In a sample of 300 items, 27 are defective. A 90% confidence interval for the proportion of defectives from this production line would go from ________ to ________.

The head librarian at the Library of Congress has asked her assistant for an interval estimate of the mean number of books checked out each day. The assistant provides the following interval estimate: from 740 to 920 books per day. If the head librarian knows that the population standard deviation is 150 books checked out per day, and she asked her assistant to use 25 days of data to construct the interval estimate, what confidence level can she attach to the interval estimate?

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, a 90% confidence interval for the mean score of actuarial students in the special program is from ________ to ________.

A race car driver tested his car for time from 0 to 60 mph, and in 20 tests obtained an average of 4.85 seconds with a standard deviation of 1.47 seconds. A 95% confidence interval for the 0 to 60 time is 4.52 seconds to 5.18 seconds.