Chapter 6 Section 1

Homework A

6.10 Margin of error and the confidence interval.

A study based on a sample of size 25 reported a mean of 93 with a margin of error of 11 for 95%
Confidence.
(a) Give the 95% confidence interval.

93  11 using the basic construct statistic  margin of error.

Thus the 95% confidence interval is (93 –11, 93 + 11) which produces (82, 104).

(b) If you wanted 99% confidence for the same study, would your margin of error be greater than,
equal to, or less than 11? Explain your answer.

The margin of error would be larger since by using a 99% confidence interval the Z* value would
increase from 1.96 (95%) to 2.576 (99%).

This makes sense that the margin of error would increase since we are saying we are 99% certain  is
in the calculated interval, and that increase in certainty is due to an increase in the interval width
(meaning by making the interval wider there is a higher probability that the interval contains ).

6.20 Apartment rental rates. You want to rent an unfurnished one-bedroom apartment in Boston next
year. The mean monthly rent for a random sample of 10 apartments advertised in the local newspaper is
$1400. Assume that the standard deviation is $220. Find a 95% confidence interval for the mean monthly
rent for unfurnished one-bedroom apartments available for rent in this community.

We have x = $1400,  = $220, and n = 10.

220
The 95% confidence interval gives 1400  1.96  1400  1.96(69.57)  1400  136.36.
10

The 95% confidence interval is ($1263.64, $1536.36)

6.21 More on apartment rental rates. Refer to the previous exercise. Will the 95% confidence interval
include approximately 95% of the rents of all unfurnished one-bedroom apartments in this area? Explain
why or why not.

No, this calculation is about estimating the mean apartment rent for a one-bedroom. We do not need
to sample 95% of the apartment prices to estimate . The 95% is the measure of a probability, the
probability that the parameter ( in this case ) is in the calculated interval.

6.23 Average hours per week on the Internet. The Student Monitor surveys 1200 undergraduates from
100 colleges semiannually to understand trends among college students.8 Recently, the Student Monitor
reported that the average amount of time spent per week on the Internet was 15.1 hours. Assume that the
standard deviation is 5 hours.

(a) Give a 95% confidence interval for the mean time spent per week on the Internet.

We have x = 15.1 hours,  = 5 hours, and n = 100.

5
15.1  1.96  15.1  1.96(0.1443)  15.1  0.2829  (14.82 hrs, 15.38 hrs)
1200

(b) Is it true that 95% of the students surveyed reported weekly times that lie in the interval you found in
part (a)? Explain your answer.

No, the interval created, (14.82 hrs, 15.38 hrs) does not contain 95% of the data values used to create
5
it. Why? Well the width of the interval is determined by 1.96 , the margin of error. As n
1200
increases the value decreases, it would be hard to imagine that 95% of the numbers that make up the
sample mean are contained in that interval. Does that make sense? Yes, since the margin of error
contains the measure for the variability of the sample mean for a given sample size. We understand
that a sample of 100 will give a better estimate of  than say a sample of 10. Why? What we
sometimes forget is that the reason that a sample of 100 is better is because a sample of 100 is less
variable.
6.25 Calories consumed by women in the U.S. The mean number of calories consumed by women in the
United States who are 19 to 30 years of age is  = 1791 calories per day. The standard deviation is 31
calories.9 You will study a sample of 200 women in this age range, and one of the variables you -will
collect is calories consumed per day.

(a)What is the standard deviation of the sample mean x ?

31
σx = 200
 2.19

(b) The 68-95-99.7 rule says that the probability is about 0.95 that x is within _4.38____ calories of the
population mean . Fill in the blank.

We are saying that there is a 95% probability that our sample will generate a sample mean that
will located in the yellow area; within 4.38 calories of the true average (population average) of
17.91 calories.
(c) About 95% of all samples will capture the true mean of calories consumed per day in the interval x plus
or minus _4.38____ calories. Fill in the blank.

6.29 Required sample size for specifed margin of error. A new bone study is being planned that will
measure the biomarker TRAP described in Exercise 6.17. Using the value of  given there, 6.5 U/l, find
the sample size required to provide an estimate of the mean TRAP with a margin of error of 2.0 U/l for
95% confidence.

2
�1.96(6.5) �
� �= 41. You would need a sample size of 41.
� 2 �