Exam 8: Confidence Interval Estimation

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.

The head of a computer science department is interested in estimating the proportion of students entering the department who will choose the new computer engineering option. Suppose there is no information about the proportion of students who might choose the option.What size sample should the department head take if she wants to be 95% confident that the estimate is within 0.10 of the true proportion?

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 confidence interval estimate of the population mean would only be valid if the distribution of voltages is normal.

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

SCENARIO 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 Scenario 8-6, it is possible that the true proportion of people that recognize the product is not between 0.36 and 0.54.

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

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 is the width of the 90% confidence interval?

SCENARIO 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 Scenario 8-2, the confidence interval is valid only if the lengths cut are normally distributed.

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 for the mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month is 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?

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

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 will contain 99% of the student population who own a personal computer.

Given a sample mean of 2.1 and a sample standard deviation of 0.7 from a sample of 10 data points, a 90% confidence interval will have a width of 2.36.

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

The standardized normal distribution is used to develop a confidence interval estimate of the population proportion regardless of whether the population standard deviation is known.

A confidence interval was used to estimate the proportion of statistics students who are female.A random sample of 72 statistics students generated the following 90% confidence interval: (0.438, 0.642).Using the information above, what total size sample would be necessary if we wanted to estimate the true proportion to within using 95% confidence?

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.Suppose you want to estimate the population mean fill with 95% confidence and 0.04 oz.sampling error rate.What should be your sample size?

The t distribution approaches the standardized normal distribution when the number of degrees of freedom increases.

SCENARIO 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 Scenario 8-3, the critical value used in constructing a 90% confidence interval is __________.

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, a 99% confidence interval for the proportion of the student population who feel comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students is from __________ to __________.