CHAPTER 5: SAMPLING & ESTIMATION

Example 1:

Food waste generated daily from school canteens has a normal distribution with a mean of
25 kg and a standard deviation of 8 kg. For a random sample of 5 days, calculate the
probability that the average amount of food waste will exceed 30 kg

Solution:

For sample n=5 the mean of the sampling distribution is equal to the mean of the
population.
μ X́ =μ=25 kg

The standard error of the means is

σ 8
σ X́ = = =3.58 kg
√ n √5
P ( X́ >30 ) =?

n=5 , μ=25 kg , σ =8 kg

X́ −μ 30−25
z= = =1.40
σ 8
√n √5
P ( X́ >30 ) =P ( Z >1.40 )

From table: P ( Z >1.40 )=0.0808

P ( X́ >30 ) =0.0808

Example 2:

Physical characteristic of manufactured products are often well described by normal

distribution. Suppose for example, that we want to evaluate the length (in cm) of certain
part in the production process based on the information in a random sample of five such
part. The part are required to have a nominal length of 20cm; past experience with this
process indicates that the standard deviation id known to be σ=1.8 cm. If we assume that
the length can be described by a normal distribution, what is the probability that the mean
of this sample will be within 2 mm of the current process mean μ? That is, what is the
probability that x́ will lie between μ-2 and μ+2?
Solution:

The solution to this type of problem is recognizing that the sampling distribution of x́ is
σ 1.8
normal with a mean of μ x́ =μ a and standard error of σ x́ = = =0.805. To find the
√ n √5
probability P(μ-2< x́<μ+2), we standardized, making sure to use the mean and standard
error of x́ while doing this:

P ¿ =0.9868

That is, there is a 98.68% chance that the mean of a random sample of size n=5 will be
within 2 units of the population mean μ.

Answer this question!

1. The random variable, 𝑋 represents the time (in hours) spent by civil engineers
working on-site per week. It has a probability distribution shown in Table E1. By
applying the central limit theorem, calculate the probability that the average time
spent working on-site per week by a population of 42 civil engineers will be less
than 6.5 hours.

Table E1: Probability distribution of X

x 6 7 8 9
P(X=x) 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

# Upload your answer through the Attendance Google form before next class.

EXERCISES
1. The inside diameter of the randomly selected piston ring is a random variable with
a mean of 12 cm and a standard deviation of 0.04. Assume that the distribution of
piston diameter is known to be normal,
a. Calculate the probability P(11.99≤ x́ ≤12.01) when n = 16. (Answer: 0.6826)
b. Calculate the probability P(11.99≤ x́ ≤12.01) when n = 64 (Answer: 0.9544)

2. The lifetime of a certain battery is normally distributed with a mean value of 8

hours and a standard deviation of 1 hour. There are 4 such batteries in a package.
a. What is the probability that the average life time of the four batteries exceeds
9 hour? (Answer: 0.0228)
b. What is the probability that the total lifetime of the batteries will exceeds 36
hours? (Answer: 0.228)
c. If T denoted the total lifetime of the 4 batteries in a randomly selected
package, find the numerical value of TO for which P(T ≥ TO)=0.95.
(Answer: 8.8225)

3. The hardness of certain metal pin is known to have a mean of 50 and standard
deviation of 1.5.
a. If the distribution of all such pin hardness measurements is known to be
normal, what is the probability that the average hardness for a random
sample of 9 pins is at least 52?
b. What is the approximation probability that the average hardness in a random
samples of 40 pins is at least 52?

4. Suppose that the sediment density (in g/cm3) of specimens from a certain region is
normally distributed with a mean 2.65 and a standard deviation of 0.85.
a. If a random sample of 25 such specimens is selected, what is the probability
that the sample average sediment density is at most 3.00? Between 2.65 and
3.00? (Answer: 0.9803; 0.4803)
b. How large a sample would be required to ensure that the first probability in
part (a) is at least 0.99? (Answer: 31.91 or n=32)