Sampling Distribution Problems

Problem 1: Mercury makes a 2.4 liter V-6 engine, the Laser XRi, used in speedboats. The
company’s engineers believe the engine delivers an average power of 220 horsepower and
that the standard deviation of power delivered is 15 HP. A potential buyer intends to sample
100 engines (each engine is to be run a single time). What is the probability that the sample
mean will be less than 217HP?

Ans: 2.28%

Population Mean = 220 hp

Population STDEV=15 hp

n =100

Prob.( x̄ < 217) = Prob. (z< (217-220)/15) = Prob. (Z<-2) = Prob. (Z>2)

= 0.5-0.4772=0.0228=2.28%

Problem 2: In recent years, convertible sports coupes have become very popular in Japan.
Toyota is currently shipping Celicas to Los Angeles, where a customizer does a roof lift and
ships them back to Japan. Suppose that 25% of all Japanese in a given income and lifestyle
category are interested in buying Celica convertibles. A random sample of 100 Japanese
consumers in the category of interest is to be selected. What is the probability that at least
20% of those in the sample will express an interest in a Celica convertible?

Ans: 87%

Given n =100, Population Proportion = 0.25, Population STDEV = SQRT [p(1-p)/n]

=SQRT [(0.25*0.75)/100]=SQRT(0.00187)=0.043301

So, sample proportion ^p ~ N(0.25, 0.0433);

Then P( ^p >0.20) = P(Z>((0.20-0.25)/0.0433)=P(Z>-1.15)

= 0.5 + P(Z<1.15) = 0.5+0.3749=0.8749 = 87.49%

pˆ ~ N ( p, p (1  p ) / n )
pˆ ~ N (?, ?)

Area
p̂ =?
P(>=0.20)?
ˆ)  ?
E( p
p̂
.20
Problem 3: The average score for male golfers is 95 and the average score for female golfers
is 106 strokes. Use these values as the population means for men and women and assume that
the population standard deviation is 14 strokes for both. A simple random sample of 30 male
golfers and another simple random sample of 45 female golfers will be taken.

a) Show the sampling distribution of forx̄ male golfers.

b) What is the probability that the sample mean is within 3 strokes of the population
mean for the sample of male golfers?
c) What is the probability that the sample mean is within 3 strokes of the population
mean for the sample of female golfers?
d) In which case, part (b) or (c), is the probability of obtaining a sample mean within 3
strokes of the population mean higher? Why?

Ans:

a) Draw the normal distribution showing the mean and stdev.

b) 0.7580
c) 0.8502
d) In case of (c)

a. This is a graph of a normal distribution with E ( x ) = 95 and

 x   / n  14 / 30  2.56

b. Within 3 strokes means 92  x  98

98  95 92  95
z  1.17 z  1.17
2.56 2.56

P(92  x  98) = P(-1.17 ≤ z ≤ 1.17) = .8790 - .1210 = .7580

The probability the sample means will be within 3 strokes of the population mean of 95 is .7580.

c.  x   / n  14 / 45  2.09

Within 3 strokes means 103  x  109

109  106 103  106

z  1.44 z  1.44
2.09 2.09

P(103  x  109) = P(-1.44 ≤ z ≤ 1.44) = .9251 - .0749 = .8502

The probability the sample means will be within 3 strokes of the population mean of 106 is .
8502.

d. The probability of being within 3 strokes for female golfers is higher because the
sample size is larger.
Problem 4: A production process is checked periodically by a quality control inspector. The
inspector selects simple random samples of 30 finished products and computes the sample
mean product weights x . If test results over a long period of time show that 5% of the
values are over 2.1 pounds and 5% are under1.9 pounds, what are the mean and the standard
deviation for the population of products produced with this process?
Ans: Mean = 2, STDEV = 0.33

Sampling distribution of x

1.9 + 2.1 = 2
 =
2

 
x  
n 30

0.05 0.05

x
1.9 2.1 

The area below x = 2.1 must be 1 - .05 = .95. An area of .95 in the standard normal table shows

2.1  2.0
z  1.645
z = 1.645. Thus,  / 30

Solve for 

(.1) 30
  .33
1.645

Problem 5: Lorie Jeffrey is a successful sales representative for a major publisher of college
text books. Historically, Lorie obtains a book adoption on 25% of her sales calls. Viewing her
sales calls for one month as a sample of all possible sales calls, assume that a statistical
analysis of the data yields a standard error of the proportion of 0.0625.

a) How large was the sample used in this analysis? That is how many sales calls did
Lorie make during the month?
^p
b) Let represents the sample proportion of book adoptions obtained during the month.
Show the sampling distribution of . ^p
c) Using the sampling distribution of ^p
compute the probability that Lorie will obtain
book adoptions on 30% or more of her sales calls during a one-month period.

Ans: a) 48, b) mean = 0.25, variance 0.0625, draw the distribution c) 21%

p(1  p) .25(.75)
p   .0625
a) n n

On solving for n we get

 .25(.75)
n  48
(.0625) 2

p
b) Normal distribution with E( p ) = .25 and = .0625

(Note: (48)(.25) = 12 > 5, and (48)(.75) = 36 > 5)

c) P ( p  .30) = ?

.30  .25
z  .80
.0625 P(z ≤ .80) = .7881

P ( p  .30) = 1 - .7881 = .2119

Problem 6: It has been suggested that an investment portfolio selected randomly by throwing
darts at the stock market page of the Wall Street Journal may be a sound (well-diversified)
investment. Suppose that you own such a portfolio of 16 stocks randomly selected from all
stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). On a certain day, you hear on the
news that the average stock on the NYSE rose 1.5 points. Assuming that the standard
deviation of stock price movements on that day was 2 points and assuming that stock price
movements were normally distributed around their mean of 1.5, what is the probability that
the average stock price of your portfolio increased?

Ans: 0.9987

n = 16 μ = 1.5 σ =2
0−1. 5
P( X̄ > 0) = P
( Z>
2/ √ 16 ) = P(Z > -3) = .5 + .4987 = 0.9987