Valparaiso University

STAT 240
Name: Alexis Camargo
Date: January, 13

Honor Code: “I have neither given or received, nor have I tolerated others’ use of unauthorized aid.”

1.

(a) Sketch a Normal curve that has mean 20 and standard deviation 5. Label this curve “a”.

(b) On the same axis as your above curve, sketch a Normal curve that has mean 20 and standard
deviation 10. Label this curve “b”.

(c) Summarize how the Normal curve changes when the standard deviation is varied but the mean stays
the same.

When the standard deviation varies, but the mean stays the same, the curve can be flatter or increase in
the axis Y
 (a) Sketch a second Normal curve that has mean 20 and standard deviation 5. Label this curve “a”.

0.09

0.08

0.07

0.06

0.05
Curve A
0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

(b) On the same axis as your above curve, sketch a Normal curve that has mean 30 and standard
deviation 5. Label this curve “b”.

0.09

0.08

0.07

0.06

0.05
Curve A
0.04 Curve B

0.03

0.02

0.01

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

(c) Summarize how the Normal curve changes when the mean is varied but the standard deviation
stays the same.

When the mean varies, and the standard deviation stays, the curve moves along axis x, but doesn’t
along axis y/
3. A real estate website reports that the average price of single-family houses (SFH) in city XYZ is
$181,262 with a standard deviation of $72,891.

(a) Use the 68-95-99.7 rule to describe the distribution of the average price of SFH in XYZ.

(b) Do you think that applying the rule in this situation is reasonable? Explain your answer.
4. Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is a standardized test to measure the English language
ability of non-native speakers wishing to enroll in English-speaking universities. There are two formats of
this test: Internet-based Test (iBT) and paperbased Test (PBT). The TOEFL iBT test is scored on a scale of
0 to 120 points. The final PBT score ranges between 310 and 677. The distribution of iBT scores is
approximately Normal with mean µ = 80 and standard deviation σ = 20 in 2010. The distribution of PBT
scores is approximately Normal with mean µ = 524 and standard deviation σ = 65 in 2010.

(a) Student A scores 98 on the iBT. Student B scores 578 on the PBT. Assuming that both tests measure
the same thing, who has the higher score? Report the z-scores for both students.

(b) Student C scores 610 on the PBT. Assuming that both tests measure the same thing, what score on
the iBT is equivalent to C’s PBT score?

(c) Reports on a student’s iBT or PBT results usually give the percentile as well as the actual score. The
percentile is just the cumulative proportion stated as a percent: the percent of all scores that were
lower than or equal to this one. Student D scores 89 on the iBT. What is his/her percentile?

(d) What PBT scores make up the top 5% of all scores?

5. High density lipoprotein (HDL) is sometimes called the “good cholesterol” because low values are
associated with a higher risk of heart disease. According to the American Heart Association, people over
the age of 20 years old should have at least 40 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) of HDL cholesterol. U.S.
women aged 20 and over have a mean HDL of 55 mg/dl with a standard deviation of 15.5 mg/dl. Assume
that the distribution is Normal.

(a) What percent of women have low values of HDL (40 mg/dl or less)?

(b) HDL levels of 60 mg/dl and higher are believed to “protect” people from heart disease. What percent
of women are “protected” from heart disease?

(c) Women with more than 40 mg/dl but less than 60 mg/dl of HDL are in the intermediate range,
neither very good nor very bad. What proportion is in this category?

(d) What is the 75th percentile of the distribution of HDL for women?
(e) U.S. men aged 20 and over have a mean HDL of 46 mg/dl with a standard deviation of 13.6 mg/dl.
Assuming that the distributions are Normal, sketch a graph of the distributions of HDL for men and
women on the same axis, clearly labeling which is which.

0.04

0.03

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0.02
Men curve
0.02 Women curve

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0.01

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
(f) What percent of men have low values of HDL (40 mg/dl or less)?