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Handouts Normal Probability Distribution Is A Probability Distribution of Continuous Random Variables

The document discusses the normal probability distribution, which is a continuous probability distribution that is symmetric and bell-shaped. It is characterized by its mean and standard deviation. The normal distribution is commonly used to describe real-world data and can be used to determine probabilities and percentiles. It follows properties such as having equal mean, median and mode values, and having areas under the curve that correspond to specific probability levels.

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JULIUS GONZALES
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© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
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40 views

Handouts Normal Probability Distribution Is A Probability Distribution of Continuous Random Variables

The document discusses the normal probability distribution, which is a continuous probability distribution that is symmetric and bell-shaped. It is characterized by its mean and standard deviation. The normal distribution is commonly used to describe real-world data and can be used to determine probabilities and percentiles. It follows properties such as having equal mean, median and mode values, and having areas under the curve that correspond to specific probability levels.

Uploaded by

JULIUS GONZALES
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Normal Probability Distribution is a probability distribution of continuous random variables.

It shows graphical
representations of random variables obtained through measurement like the height and weight of the students, the
percentile ranks of the A&E (Accreditation and Equivalency) Test result of the Alternative Learning System students, or
any data with infinite values. It is used to describe the characteristics of populations and help us visualize the inferences
we make about the population. It also used to determine the probabilities and percentile of the continuous random
variables in the distribution. For example, your grades in Mathematics is one of the scores in the distribution, you can
predict the location of that score in the distribution and interpret it with regards to the mean and standard deviation.

Properties of Normal Curve


The graphical representation of the normal distribution is popularly known as a normal curve. The normal curve is
described clearly by the following characteristics:
1. The normal curve is bell-shaped.
2. The curve is symmetrical about its center. This means that, if we draw a segment from the peak of the curve down
to the horizontal axis, the segment divides the normal curve into two equal parts or areas.
3. The mean, median, and mode coincide at the center. This also means that in a normal distribution, or a distribution
described by a normal curve, the mean, median, and mode are equal.
4. The width of the curve is determined by the standard deviation of the distribution.
5. The tails of the curve are plotted in both directions and flatten out indefinitely along the horizontal axis. The tails are
thus asymptotic to the baseline. A portion of the graph that is asymptotic to a reference axis or another graph is called
an asymptote, always approaching another but never touching it.
6. The total area under a normal curve is 1. This means that the normal curve represents the probability, or the
proportion, or the percentage associated with specific sets of measurement values.

To visualize and understand the properties/characteristics of a normal curve, please refer to figure shown below.

Figure 1: Graph of a Normal Curve

A normally distributed random variable with a mean μ = 0 and standard deviation ơ = 1 is called a standard normal
variable. It is presented using standard normal distribution where the center of the curve is zero, which is mean and
added one unit from the center to the right and subtract one unit from the center to the left. This is shown below in
figure 2.

Figure 2

The shape of a normal curve is based on the two given parameters, the mean and the standard deviation of the
distribution. When comparing two distributions each described by the normal curve, the following are the three
situations based on the said parameters.
a. When the means are not equal, but the standard deviations are equal. (μ 1 ≠ μ2 ; ơ1 =ơ2 ), the curves have a similar
shape but centered at different points, as

Figure 3: The Mean are Not Equal, but the Standard Deviations are Equal.
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b. When the means are equal, but the standard deviations are equal. (μ1 = μ2 ; ơ1 ≠ ơ2 ), the curves are centered at
the same point but they have different height and spreads, as shown in figure 4.

Figure 4: The Mean are Equal, but the Standard Deviations are Not Equal.

c. When the means are different and the standard deviations are also different (μ 1≠ μ2 ; ơ1 ≠ ơ2 ), the curves are centered
at different points and vary in shapes, as shown in figure 5.

Figure 5: The Means are Different and the Standard Deviations are also Different

EMPIRICAL RULE
You can easily understand the functions of normal probability distribution in our real-life world using the empirical
rule. Because this rule is used to roughly test the distribution’s normality, if many data of a random variable fall outside
the lower and upper limits of the three-standard deviation, this means that the distribution is not normal.

The empirical rule is better known as 68% - 95% - 99.70% rule. This rule states that the data in the distribution lies
within one (1), two (2), and three (3) of the standard deviation from the mean are approximately 68%, 95%, and 99.70%,
respectively. Since the area of a normal curve is equal to 1 or 100% as stated on its characteristics, there are only a few
data which is 0.30% falls outside the 3-standard deviation from the mean. For instance, the distribution of the grades of
the Senior High School students in Statistics and Probability for the Third Quarter is shown below in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Distribution of the Grades of the SHS Students in


Statistics and Probability for the Third Quarter

Using the empirical rule, you can say that the distribution of the grades of the Senior High School in Statistics and
Probability are distributed normally because the shape of the graph is bell-shaped and symmetric about its mean,
which is 87. This also indicates that most of the students’ grades fall close to the mean and fewer of them are far below
and/or above the mean
It can summarize the distribution in the following percentage:
• 68% of data lies within 1 standard deviation from the mean have a grade of 83 to 91
• 95% of data lies within 2 standard deviations from the mean have a grade of 79 to 95
• 99.70% of data lies within 3 standard deviations from the mean have a grade of 75 to 99

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