Example 3

Inferential Statistics
PROBLEM SET
1. Catherine, Director of Marketing Research, needs a sample of households to participate in the

testing of a new toothpaste package.
a. She chooses thirty-six of her closest friends.
b. She directs the seven members of her staff to find five households each.
c. She narrows the selection by first randomly selecting 5 regions in the city; then the sample is
randomly selected from the five regions.
d. She estimates there are approximately 69,000 entries in the residential pages of the telephone
directory, randomly selects 152 as the starting point, and instructs her staff to select every
227th entry.
In each case state the sampling technique she has adopted.
2. The standard deviation of the 2009 gross sales of all corporations is known to be $139.50 million.
Let
x be the mean of the 2009 gross sales of a sample of corporations. What sample size will
produce the standard deviation of
x equal to $15.50 million?
3. The mean monthly out-of-pocket cost of prescription drugs for all senior citizens in a particular
city is $520 with a standard deviation of $72. Let
be the mean of such costs for a random
sample of 25 senior citizens from this city. Find the mean and standard deviation of the sampling
distribution of
x .
4. According to an article on www.PCMag.com, Facebook users spend an average of 190 minutes

per month checking and updating their Facebook pages. Suppose that the current distribution of
times spent per month checking and updating their Facebook pages by all users is normally
distributed with a mean of 190 minutes and a standard deviation of 53.4 minutes. Find the
probability that the mean time spent per month checking and updating their Facebook pages by a
random sample of 12 Facebook users will be
a. within 10 minutes of the population mean
b. more than 240 minutes
c. at least 20 minutes different than the population mean
d. less than 207 minutes
5. A department store manager wants to estimate at a 90% confidence level the mean amount spent
by all customers at this store. The manager knows that the standard deviation of amounts spent by
all customers at this store is $31. What sample size should he choose so that the estimate is within
$3 of the population mean?
6. A company that produces 8-ounce low-fat yogurt cups wanted to estimate the mean number of
calories for such cups. A random sample of 10 such cups produced the following numbers of
calories.
147
159
153
146
144
148
163
153
143
158
Construct a 99% confidence interval for the population mean. Assume that the numbers of
calories for such cups of yogurt produced by this company have an approximately normal
distribution.
7. The mean time taken to design a house plan by 40 architects was found to be 23 hours with a
standard deviation of 3.75 hours.
a. Construct a 98% confidence interval for the population mean .
b. Suppose the confidence interval obtained in part (a) is too wide. How can the width of
this interval be reduced? Describe all possible alternatives. Which alternative is the best and why?
8. Time spent using e-mail per session is normally distributed, with = 8 minutes and = 2
minutes. If you select a random sample of 25 sessions,
a. what is the probability that the sample mean is between 7.8 and 8.2 minutes?
b. what is the probability that the sample mean is between 7.5 and 8 minutes?
c. If you select a random sample of 100 sessions, what is the probability that the sample
mean is between 7.8 and 8.2 minutes?
d. Explain the difference in the results of (a) and (c).
9. An airplane with room for 100 passengers has a total baggage limit of 6000 pounds. Suppose that
the total weight of the baggage checked by an individual passenger is a random variable x with a
mean value of 50 pounds and a standard deviation of 20 pounds. If 100 passengers will board a
flight, what is the approximate probability that the total weight of their baggage will exceed the
limit?
10. A manufacturer of computer printers purchases plastic ink cartridges from a vendor. When a large
shipment is received, a random sample of 200 cartridges is selected, and each cartridge is
inspected. If the sample proportion of defective cartridges is more than .02, the entire shipment is
returned to the vendor.
a. What is the approximate probability that a shipment will be returned if the true
proportion of defective cartridges in the shipment is .05?
b. What is the approximate probability that a shipment will not be returned if the true
proportion of defective cartridges in the shipment is .10?
11. Consider a random sample of size n = 100 from a population that has a standard deviation of
= 20.
a. Find the probability that the sample mean
population mean.
b. Find the number k so that P[ -k
c. What is the probability that
will lie within 2 units of the
- k] = .90.
x will differ from by more than 4 units?
12. From a random sample of size 12 one has calculated the 95% confidence interval for and
obtained the result (18.6, 26.2).
a. What were the sample mean and sample standard deviation?
b. Calculate the 98% confidence interval for .
13. The standard deviation in the amount of time it takes to train a worker to perform a task is 40
minutes. A random sample of 64 workers is taken. What is the probability the sample mean will
exceed the population mean by more than 5 minutes? What is the probability the sample mean is
more than 8 minutes less than the population mean?
14. A random sample of size 39 is taken from a population of 200 members. The sample mean is 66
and the population standard deviation is 11. Construct a 96% confidence interval to estimate the
population mean. What is the point estimate of the population mean?
15. Suppose a city contains 1500 houses. A sample of 100 houses is selected randomly and evaluated
by an appraiser. If the mean appraised value of a house in this city is $177,000, with a standard
deviation of $8,500, what is the probability that the sample average is greater than $185,000?
16. Artesian Spring Water provides bottled drinking water to homes in the tri-county area in 15gallon containers. The manager wants to estimate the mean number of containers typical home
uses each month. A sample of 75 homes is taken and the number of containers is recorded. The
mean is
= 3.2, with s = 0.78. What would a 95% interval reveal? However, the manager
feels this interval is too wide. How many homes must be sample to be 99% confident that the
interval is not in error by more than 0.10 containers?
17. A company that produces and markets video game systems wishes to assess its customers level
of satisfaction with a relatively new model, the XYZ-Box. In the six months since the
introduction of the model, the company has received 73, 219 warranty registrations from the
purchasers. The company will randomly select 26 of these registrations and will conduct
telephone interviews with the purchasers. Specifically, each purchaser will be asked to state his or
her level of agreement with each of the seven statements listed on the survey instrument given
below.
Statement
The game console of the XYZ-Box is well designed.
The game controller of the XYZ-Box is easy to handle.
The XYZ-Box has high quality graphics capabilities.
The XYZ-Box has high quality audio capabilities.
The XYZ-Box serves as a complete entertainment center.
There is a large selection of XYZ-Box games to choose from.
I am totally satisfied with my XYZ-Box game system.
Strongly
Disagree
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
Strongly
Agree
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
Here, the level of agreement for each statement is measured on a 7-point Likert scale. Purchaser
satisfaction will be measured by adding the purchasers responses to the seven statements. It
follows that for each consumer the minimum composite score possible is 7 and the maximum is
49. Furthermore, experience has shown that a purchaser of a video game system is very
satisfied is his or her composite score is at least 42. Suppose that when the 26 customers are
interviewed, their composite scores are obtained and are as given in following table.
39
45
45
42
38
46
42
40
41
47
38
44
42
43
46
45
44
45
40
40
39
46
42
41
44
30
Based on above information, answer following questions.

a. What is the population for this study? Is this population finite? Justify your answer.
b. Calculate mean and standard deviation of sample of 26 satisfaction ratings.
c. Determine point estimates for population mean and standard deviation. Calculate 95 and 99
percent confidence intervals for population mean assuming population is approximately
normally distributed.
d. Consider the sampling distribution of sample mean for random samples of 26 customer
satisfaction ratings. Use the properties of this sampling distribution to find the probability of
observing a sample mean greater than or equal to 42.95 when we assume that the population
is normally distributed with mean and population standard deviation equal to 42 and 2.64
respectively.

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Inferential Statistics

1. Catherine, Director of Marketing Research, needs a sample of households to participate in the

produce the standard deviation of

x equal to $15.50 million?

be the mean of such costs for a random

4. According to an article on www.PCMag.com, Facebook users spend an average of 190 minutes

will lie within 2 units of the

x will differ from by more than 4 units?

Based on above information, answer following questions.

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