INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Semester 1, Academic Year 2018-2019

TUTORIAL MATERIAL
Sampling Distribution and Confident Interval
1. Nationwide, the probability that a rental car is from Hertz is 25 percent. In a sample of 100 rental
cars, what is the probability that fewer than 20 are from Hertz?
2. A multiple-choice exam has 100 questions. Each question has four choices.
a. What minimum score should be required to reduce the chance of passing by random guessing to
5 percent?
b. To 1 percent?
3. On a cold morning the probability is .02 that a given car will not start in the small town of Eureka.
Assume that 1,500 cars are started each cold morning.
a. What is the probability that at least 25 cars will not start?
b. More than 40?
4. At a certain fire station, false alarms are received at a mean rate of 0.2 per day. In a year, what is the
probability that fewer than 60 false alarms are received?
5. The weights of 20 oranges (in ounces) are shown below. Construct a 95 percent confidence interval
for the population mean.
5.50 6.25 6.25 6.50 6.50 7.00 7.00 7.00 7.50 7.50
7.75 8.00 8.00 8.50 8.50 9.00 9.00 9.25 10.00 10.50
6. A random sample of 25 lunch orders at Noodles and Company showed a mean bill of $10.36 with
a standard deviation of $5.31. Find the 95 percent confidence interval for the mean bill of all lunch
orders.
7. Statistics students were asked to go home and fill a 1-cup measure with raisin bran, tap the cup
lightly on the counter three times to settle the contents, if necessary add more raisin bran to bring the
contents exactly up to the 1-cup line, spread the contents on a large plate, and count the raisins. For
the 13 students who chose Kellogg’s brand, the reported results were
23 33 44 36 29 42 31 33 61 36 34 23 24
Construct a 90 percent confidence interval for the mean number of raisins per cup.
8. Landings and takeoffs at Schiphol, Holland, per month are (in 1,000s) as follows:
26, 19, 27, 30, 18, 17, 21, 28, 18, 26, 19, 20, 23, 18, 25, 29, 30, 26, 24, 22, 31, 18, 30, 19
Assume a random sample of months. Give a 95% confidence interval for the average monthly
number of takeoffs and landings.
9. Thomas Stanley, who surveyed 200 millionaires in the United States for his book The Millionaire
Mind, found that those in that bracket had an average net worth of $9.2 million. The sample variance
was 1.3 million $. Assuming that the surveyed subjects are a random sample of U.S. millionaires,
give a 99% confidence interval for the average net worth of U.S. millionaires.
10. According to an advertisement in Worth, in a survey of 68 multifamily office companies, the
average client company had assets of $55.3 million. If this is a result of a random sample and the
sample standard deviation was $21.6 million, give a 95% confidence interval for the population
average asset value.
11. According to the Wall Street Journal, an average of 44 tons of carbon dioxide will be saved per year
if new, more efficient lamps are used. Assume that this average is based on a random sample of 15

STATISTICS FOR BUSSINESS – TA NGUYEN BAO MINH TRI 1

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Semester 1, Academic Year 2018-2019

test runs of the new lamps and that the sample standard deviation was 18 tons. Give a 90%
confidence interval for average annual savings.
12. Sony’s new optical disk system prototype tested and claimed to be able to record an average of 1.2
hours of high-definition TV. Assume n = 10 trials and s = 0.2 hour. Give a 90% confidence interval.
13. The average customer of the Halifax bank in Britain (of whom there are 7.6 million) received $3,600
when the institution changed from a building society to a bank. If this is based on a random sample
of 25 customers with standard deviation $800, give a 95% confidence interval for the average
amount paid to any of the 7.6 million bank customers.
14. According to Shape, on the average, 1 cup of edamame beans contains 6 grams of protein. If this
conclusion is based on a random sample of 26 cups of edamames and the sample standard deviation
is 3 grams. Construct a 95% confidence interval for the average amount of protein in 12 cup of
edamames.
15. The lengths of pins produced by an automatic lathe are normally distributed. A random sample of 20
pins gives a sample mean of 0.992 inch and a sample standard deviation of 0.013 inch. Give a 95%
confidence interval for the average lengths of all pins produced.
16. According to the Darvas Box stock trading system, a trader looks at a chart of stock prices over time
and identifies box-shaped patterns. Then one buys the stock if it appears to be in the lower left corner
of a box, and sells if in the upper right corner. In simulations with real data, using a sample of 376
trials, the average hold time for a stock was 41.12 days. If the sample standard deviation was 12
days, give a 90% confidence interval for the average hold time in days.
17. The manufacturer of batteries used in small electric appliances wants to estimate the average life of a
battery. A random sample of 12 batteries yields x̅ = 34.2 hours and s = 5.9 hours. Give a 95%
confidence interval for the average life of a battery.
18. When sampling is done for the proportion of defective items in a large shipment, where the
population proportion is 0.18 and the sample size is 200, what is the probability that the sample
proportion will be at least 0.20?
19. A quality-control analyst wants to estimate the proportion of imperfect jeans in a large warehouse.
The analyst plans to select a random sample of 500 pairs of jeans and note the proportion of
imperfect pairs. If the actual proportion in the entire warehouse is 0.35, what is the probability that
the sample proportion will fall within 0.03 of the population proportion?
20. Thirty-eight percent of all shoppers at a large department store are holders of the store’s charge card.
If a random sample of 100 shoppers is taken, what is the probability that at least 30 of them will be
found to be holders of the card?
21. FinAid is a new, free Web site that helps people obtain information on 180,000 college tuition aid
awards. A random sample of 500 such awards revealed that 368 were granted for reasons other than
financial need. They were based on the applicant’s qualifications, interests, and other variables.
Construct a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of all awards on this service made for reasons
other than financial need.
22. According to Money, 60% of men have significant balding by age 50. If this finding is based on a
random sample of 1,000 men of age 50, give a 95% confidence interval for the population of men of
50 who show some balding.

STATISTICS FOR BUSSINESS – TA NGUYEN BAO MINH TRI 2

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Semester 1, Academic Year 2018-2019

23. In a sample of 500 new websites registered on the Internet, 24 were anonymous (i.e., they shielded
their name and contact information). Construct a 95 percent confidence interval for the proportion of
all new websites that were anonymous.
24. From a list of stock mutual funds, 52 funds were selected at random. Of the funds chosen, it was
found that 19 required a minimum initial investment under $1,000. Construct a 90 percent
confidence interval for the true proportion requiring an initial investment under $1,000.
25. A survey showed that 4.8 percent of the 250 Americans surveyed had suffered some kind of identity
theft in the past 12 months. Construct a 99 percent confidence interval for the true proportion of
Americans who had suffered identity theft in the past 12 months.

STATISTICS FOR BUSSINESS – TA NGUYEN BAO MINH TRI 3