Exam 8: Confidence Interval Estimation

SCENARIO 8-7 A hotel chain wants to estimate the mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month.The population of rooms rented daily is assumed to be normally distributed for each month with a standard deviation of 240 rooms.During February, a sample of 25 days has a sample mean of 370 rooms. -Referring to Scenario 8-7, a 99% confidence interval will contain 99% of the sample mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month.

A prison official wants to estimate the proportion of cases of recidivism.Examining the records of250 convicts, the official determines that there are 65 cases of recidivism.A 99% confidence interval for the proportion of cases of recidivism would go from to .

SCENARIO 8-8 The president of a university would like to estimate the proportion of the student population that owns a personal computer.In a sample of 500 students, 417 own a personal computer. -Referring to Scenario 8-8, a 99% confidence interval for the proportion of the student population who own a personal computer is from to .

SCENARIO 8-7 A hotel chain wants to estimate the mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month.The population of rooms rented daily is assumed to be normally distributed for each month with a standard deviation of 240 rooms.During February, a sample of 25 days has a sample mean of 370 rooms. -Referring to Scenario 8-7, a 95% confidence interval for the mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month is narrower than a 99% confidence interval.

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.The 95% confidence interval for $\pi$ is 0.59 $\pm$ 0.07.Interpret this interval.

SCENARIO 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 Scenario 8-5, it is possible that the mean of the population is between47.19 and 52.61.

SCENARIO 8-10 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 Scenario 8-10, we are 95% confident that between 51.16% and 64.84%of managers in the population have caught salespeople cheating on an expense report.

SCENARIO 8-9 A university wanted to find out the percentage of students who felt comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.A survey 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 Scenario 8-9, the parameter of interest is the proportion of the student population who feel comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.

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

The t distribution is used to develop a confidence interval estimate of the population mean when the population standard deviation is unknown.

SCENARIO 8-8 The president of a university would like to estimate the proportion of the student population that owns a personal computer.In a sample of 500 students, 417 own a personal computer. -Referring to Scenario 8-8, the parameter of interest is the mean number of students in the population who own a personal computer.

SCENARIO 8-10 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 Scenario 8-10, determine the sample size needed to estimate the proportion of managers who have caught salespeople working a second job on company time to within ±0.02 with95% confidence.

Sampling error equals half the width of a confidence interval.

SCENARIO 8-12 The Three Brothers Energy Drink Company bottles and distributes a popular drink for athletes and exercise enthusiasts.Because of its marketing successes the company has installed an additional filling machine and the managers are eager to use it in daily operations.The machine is set to fill bottles at 16 oz. However, we know there is inherent machine variability and quality control has determined through testing a mean of 16.2 oz.and a standard deviation of 0.3 oz.using a 100 bottle sample. -Refer to Scenario 8-12.Find a 90% confidence interval for the mean volume of the filled bottle contents.

SCENARIO 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 Scenario 8-4, a 99% confidence interval will contain 99% of the voltages for all such power packs.

The t distribution is used to develop a confidence interval estimate of the population proportion when the population standard deviation is unknown.

The confidence interval estimate of the population proportion is constructed around the sample proportion.

An economist is interested in studying the incomes of consumers in a country.The population standard deviation is known to be $1,000.A random sample of 50 individuals resulted in a mean 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?

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.

SCENARIO 8-11 A poll was conducted by the marketing department of a video game company to determine the popularity of a new game that was targeted to be launched in three months.Telephone interviews with 1,500 young adults were conducted which revealed that 49% said they would purchase the new game.The margin of error was ±3 percentage points. -Referring to Scenario 8-11, the sampling error is 3%.