Worksheet V: SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION Assoc. Prof. Dr.

Çağrı Levent USLU

1. An experiment involves selecting a random sample of 256 middle managers study. One item of interest is their mean
annual income. The sample mean is computed to be $35,420 and the sample standard deviation is $2,050. What is the
standard error of the mean?

2. The wildlife department has been feeding a special food to rainbow trout fingerlings in a pond. Based on a large
number of observations, the distribution of trout weights is normally distributed with a mean of 402.7 grams and a
standard deviation 8.8 grams. What is the probability that the mean weight for a sample of 40 trout exceeds 405.5
grams?

3. Suppose a research firm conducted a survey to determine the average amount of money steady smokers spend on
cigarettes during a week. A sample of 100 steady smokers revealed that the sample mean is $20 and the sample
standard deviation is $5. What is the probability that a sample of 100 steady smokers spend between $19 and $21?

4. Mileage tests were conducted on a randomly selected sample of 100 newly developed automobile tires. The average
tread wear was found to be 50,000 miles with a standard deviation of 3,500 miles. What is the best estimate of the
average tread life in miles for the entire population of these tires?

5. An accounting firm is planning for the next tax preparation season. From last year's returns, the firm collects a
systematic random sample of 100 filings. The 100 filings showed an average preparation time of 90 minutes with a
standard deviation of 140 minutes.
a. What is the probability that the mean completion time will be more than 120 minutes?
b. What is the probability that the mean completion time is between 1 and 2 hours.

6. A group of statistics students decided to conduct a survey at their university to find the average (mean) amount of
time students spend studying per week. Based on a simple random sample, they surveyed 144 students. The statistics
showed that students studied an average of 20 hours per week with a standard deviation of 10 hours.
a. What is the probability that a sample mean would exceed 20 hours per week?
b. What is the probability of finding a sample mean less than 18 hours?
c. What is the probability that average student study time is between 18 and 22 hours?

7. Suppose that in a population of voters in a certain region 38% are in favor of particular bond issue. Nine hundred
randomly selected voters are asked if they favor the bond issue.
a. Verify that the sample proportion computed from samples of size 900 meets the condition that its sampling
distribution be approximately normal.
b. Find the probability that the sample proportion computed from a sample of size 900will be within 5 percentage
points of the true population proportion

8. The Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test scores are normally distributed with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.
a. What is the probability that a person would score between 85 and 115?
b. You enrolled in a class of 25 students. What is the probability that the class' average IQ exceeds 130?
c. Given a class with 9 students, what is the probability that the class' average IQ score is between 85 and 115?

9. Truck tire life is normally distributed with a mean of 60,000 miles and a standard deviation of 4,000 miles.
a. What is the probability that a tire lasts between 54,000 and 66,000 miles?
b. You bought four tires. What is the probability that the average mileage of the four tires exceeds 66,000 miles?

10. A farmer knows that the population of gestation periods for a certain type of animal is normally distributed with a
mean of 90 days and a standard deviation of 5 days. If the next 20 animals born are viewed as a random sample, what
is the probability that the sample mean gestation period will be
a. above 95 days?
b. between 82 and 91 days?
c. below 93 days?
d. below 89 days?

11. A manufacturer claims an average battery life of 60 months, with a standard deviation of 7 months. You take a simple
random sample of 50 batteries and encounter a sample mean of 53 months. Are you inclined to believe the claim?

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 Worksheet V: SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION Assoc. Prof. Dr. Çağrı Levent USLU

12. The population of airline passengers has an average weight of 175 lb., with a standard deviation of 18.7 lb. What is
the likelihood that a group of 100 randomly chosen passengers will exceed the safe total weight of 17,000 lb.
designated by the FAA?

13. Uslu automotive is producing electric cars. From every days production they sample 20 cars. If the sample variance
of energy consumption per 100 km exceeds an upper limit, they check the production process and fine tune production
facility.
a. Find this upper limit for sample variance, such that the probability of exceeding this limit is less than 10% while
the population variance is 25.
b. What is the probability that sample variance is less than 39.663?

14. Suppose it is known that 43% of Americans own an iPhone. If a random sample of 50 Americans were surveyed,
what is the probability that the proportion of the sample who owned an iPhone is between 45% and 50%?

15. An economist claims that the duration of unemployment among workers is a normally distributed random variable
with a mean of 27 months and a standard deviation of 7 months. You take a simple random sample of n = 24. If the
claim is true, what is the likelihood of your encountering a sample mean
a. below 20 months?
b. above 36 months?

16. Suppose someone told you that 55 percent of all households had more than one TV set. You then took a random
sample of 25 households and found that only two had more than one set. What would you conclude?

17. Clerks at an insurance company make at least one error on 5 percent of all insurance forms. If you take a simple
random sample of 100 forms, what is the probability of encountering
a. fewer than 2 erroneous forms?
b. between 3 and 10 erroneous forms?
c. more than 5 erroneous forms?

18. Suppose that a sample of 1, 600 tires of the same type are obtained at random from an ongoing production process in
which 8% of all such tires produced are defective. What is the probability that in such a sample not more than 150
tires will be defective?

19. You are the Webmaster for your firm's Website. From your records, you know that the probability that a visitor will
buy something from your firm is 0.23. If the number of visitors in one day is 952, what is the probability that less
than 200 of them will buy something from your firm?

20. A study conducted by a local tennis center revealed that 25 percent of its new members have novice level tennis skills.
A membership drive in a metropolitan area resulted in 500 new members. What is the probability that between 110
and 130 of the new members are novice tennis players?

21. Shirley Mendez is the manager of quality assurance for Green Valley Foods, Inc, a packer of frozen-vegetable
products. Shirley wants to be sure that the variation of package is small so that the company does not produce a large
proportion packages that are under the stated package weight. She has asked you to obtain upper limits for the ratio
of the sample variance divided by the population variance for a random sample of n=20 observations. The limits are
such that the probability that the ratio is above the upper limit is 0.025. Thus 97.5% of the ratios will be below this
limit. Find that limit. (Newbold, Statistics for Business and Economics, 8th ed. P:274) A difficult question. You can
find the answer in this reference.

22. Mortality tables enable actuaries to obtain the probability that a person at any particular age will live a specified
number of years. Insurance companies and others use such probabilities to determine life-insurance premiums,
retirement pensions, and annuity payments. According to tables provided by the National Center for Health Statistics
in Vital Statistics of the United States, a person of age 20 years has about an 80% chance of being alive at age 65
years. Suppose, for instance, that 500 people of age 20 years are selected at random. Find the probability that
a. exactly 390 of them will be alive at age 65.
b. between 375 and 425 of them, inclusive, will be alive at age 65.

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 Worksheet V: SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION Assoc. Prof. Dr. Çağrı Levent USLU

23. In a recent survey of college professors, it was found that the average amount of money spent on entertainment each
week was normally distributed with a mean of $95.25 and a standard deviation of $27.32. What is the probability
that the average spending of a sample of 25 randomly-selected professors will exceed $102.50?

24. It is known that the average height of Yeditepe students is 170cm. If we grab a sample with a size of 100, what is the
probability that the sample mean is greater than 172cm given that population st. dev. is 13 and the population is
normally distributed?

25. There are 10 members at the Department of Economics, Yeditepe University, who can be regarded as a sample of
Economics Professors in Turkey. Each of these members are asked to predict the rate of inflation for the coming year.
If you assume that predictions of all Economics Professors in Turkey follow a normal distribution with a standard
deviation of 8%,
a. The probability is 0.01 that the sample standard deviation is greater than what number?
b. The probability is 0.025 that the sample standard deviation is less than what number?
c. Find any pair of numbers such that the probability that the sample standard deviation that lies between these
numbers is 0.9.

26. In examining the invoices issued by a company, an auditor finds that the dollar amounts of invoices have a mean of
$1,732 and a standard deviation of $298. What is the probability that for a sample of 45 invoices, the average invoice
is greater than $1,800?

27. In a recent survey of high school students, it was found that the average amount of money spent on entertainment
each week was normally distributed with a mean of $52.30 and a standard deviation of $18.23. Assuming these
values are representative of all high school students, what is the probability that for a sample of 25, the average
amount spent by each student exceeds $60?

28. The number of students using the ATM on campus daily is normally distributed with a mean of 237.6 and a standard
deviation of 26.3. For a random sample of 55 days, what is the probability that ATM usage averaged more than 230
students per day?

29. The weights of Golf balls are checked 15 times a day and the weights of golf balls are distributed normally.

a. The probability is 0.95 that the sample variance is more than what percentage of the population variance?
b. The probability is 0.90 that the sample variance is more than what percentage of the population variance?
c. Determine any pair of appropriate numbers, a and b, to complete the following sentence: The probability is 95%
that the sample variance is between a% and b% of the population variance.

30. The results of a recent survey indicated that 17.7% of all U.S. adults had taken a commercial airplane flight during
the last year. If we take a random sample of 40 adults, the probability is 0.37 that the sample proportion is greater
than what number?

31. In a particular year, the percentage rates of return of U.S. common stock mutual funds had a normal distribution with
a mean of 14.8 and a standard deviation of 6.3. A random sample of nine of these mutual funds was taken,
a. What is the probability that the sample mean percentage rate of return is more than 19?
b. What is the probability that the sample mean percentage rate of return is between 10.6 and 19?
c. The probability is 0.25 that the sample mean percentage return is less than what number
d. The probability is 0.25 that the sample mean percentage return is more than what number
e. If a sample of 20 of these funds was taken\ state whether the probability of sample mean percentage rate o return
of more than 19 would be smaller than, larger than or the same as the correct answer to part (a). Sketch a graph
to illustrate your reasoning. (Newbold 8th ed., P:278, q:6.68)

32. If all possible samples of size n are drawn from an infinite population with a mean of 20 and a standard deviation of
5, then the standard error of the sampling distribution of sample means is equal to 1.0 only for what size of sample?

33. If the standard error of the sampling distribution of the sample proportion is 0.022912878 for samples of size 400,
then the population proportion is either…….. or …….. (Hint: You need to make a slight rounding)

34. If the standard deviation of the sampling distribution of sample means is 5.0 for samples of size 16, then what is the
population standard deviation?

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 Worksheet V: SAMPLING DISTRIBUTION Assoc. Prof. Dr. Çağrı Levent USLU

35. CİM marketler zinciri is buying eggs from AK poultry and at each shipment some of the eggs turn out to be broken.
The variance of broken eggs that AK poultry ships is 15.4. A competing poultry firm (ÖZUSLU poultry) phones the
CEO of CİM and says,

-Yo man, gotta foget that shitty AK poultry. C’mon man look what they are sending you. They are cheaters, swindlers,
the owner of the company is an old crook. But look at how honorable I am. I promise you to send eggs with less
variance in broken eggs. Check out my last 25 shipments to other markets, the variance of broken eggs is just 12.2

Basing on this information, find the probability that the variance of broken eggs of ÖZUSLU poultry is less than 12.2
assuming that the population variance is 15.4.

36. A golfer practices 60 twenty-foot putts a day and historically makes 25 percent of them. Calculate the standard error
of the sample proportion.

37. All possible random samples of 200 middle managers are selected from a population for a study concerning their
mean annual income. The population standard deviation is computed to be $2,248.5. What is the standard deviation
of the sampling distribution of the means?

38. You have recently joined a Weight Watchers club. Suppose that the number of times you expect to visit the club in
a month is represented by a normally distributed random variable with a mean of 12 and a standard deviation of 2.50.
a. Over the course of the next year, what is the probability that you average more than 13 visits to the club?
b. The probability is 85% that you average less than how many visits to the club per month over the course of next
year?

39. Suppose that 20% of all invoices are for amounts greater than $800. A random sample of 50 invoices is taken.
a. What is the mean and standard error of the sample proportion of invoices with amounts in excess of $800?
b. What is the probability that more than 22.7% of these 50 invoices are for more than $800?
c. What is the probability that at least 25% of these 50 invoices are for more than $800?
d. Suppose that 15% of all invoices are for amounts greater than $1,000. A random sample of 60 invoices is taken.
What is the probability that between 17% and 23% of these 60 invoices are for more than $1,000?

40. The average score of all students who took a particular statistics class last semester has a mean of 70 and a standard
deviation of 3.0. Suppose 36 students who are taking the class this semester are selected at random. Find the
probability that the average score of the 36 students exceeds 71.

41. Assume the data is from a normal distribution. Given that 𝜎 2 = 25 and n=5. Use the Chi Square distribution to
determine the probability that the sample variance is greater than 56. Assume the data is from a normal distribution.

42. From my previous experience, I know that the Yeditepe Economics graduates salaries has a standard deviation of
2500₺. A random 16 graduates are selected,
a. What is the probability that sample standard deviation is more than 3000₺?
b. Find the probability that the sample standard deviation is less than 1500₺.

43. A pizza producers is concerned about the amount of mozzarella (in grams) in their pizzas. More specifically, they
don’t want the variance of mozzarella to be more than 50 gr. The production manager randomly selects 30 pizzas
from production. What is the probability that the variance of mozzarella in this selected sample would not fulfill the
requirement, if in fact, the population variance is 34.0719?