Exam 8: Confidence Interval Estimation

TABLE 8-11 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 Table 8-11,a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of the student population who feel comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students is narrower than a 99% confidence interval.

TABLE 8-14 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 Table 8-14,what is the needed sample size to obtain a 99% confidence interval in estimating the percentage of the targeted young adults who will purchase the new game to within ±5% if you do not have the information on the 49% in the interviews who said that they would purchase the new game?

TABLE 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 Table 8-8,a confidence interval estimate of the population proportion would only be valid if the distribution of the number of students who own a personal computer is normal.

A prison official wants to estimate the proportion of cases of recidivism.Examining the records of 250 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 ________.

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

TABLE 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 24 rooms.During February,a sample of 25 days has a sample mean of 37 rooms. -Referring to Table 8-7,the critical value for a 99% confidence interval for this sample is ________.

If you were constructing a 99% confidence interval of the population mean based on a sample of n = 25 where the standard deviation of the sample S = 0.05,the critical value of t will be

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 not between 0.36 and 0.54.

TABLE 8-13 A sales and marketing management magazine conducted a survey of salespeople cheating on their expense reports and other unethical conduct.In the survey of 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,we are 95% confident that between 51.16% and 64.84% of managers in the population have caught salespeople cheating on an expense report.

TABLE 8-2 A quality control engineer is interested in the mean length of sheet insulation being cut automatically by machine.The desired mean 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 goes from ________ to ________.

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?

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

TABLE 8-11 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 Table 8-11,it is possible that the 99% confidence interval calculated from the data will not contain the sample proportion of students who feel comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.

It is desired to estimate the mean total compensation of CEOs in the Service industry.Data were randomly collected from 18 CEOs and the 95% confidence interval was calculated to be ($2,181,260,$5,836,180).Which of the following interpretations is correct?

TABLE 8-11 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 Table 8-11,the sampling error of a 99% confidence interval for the proportion of student population who feel comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students is ________.

TABLE 8-14 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 Table 8-14,the size of the population is 1,500.

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 $400 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 8-8 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 Table 8-8,it is possible that the 99% confidence interval calculated from the data will not contain the sample proportion of students who own a personal computer.

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

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,it is possible that the confidence interval obtained will not contain the mean score for all actuarial students in the special study program.