Normal Distribution

Prof. Noor Md. Rahmatullah

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 Problem 01
A pizza delivery service delivers to a campus dormitory at SAU .
Delivery times follow a normal distribution with mean 20 minutes
and standard deviation 4 minutes.
a) What is the probability that a delivery will take between 15
and 25 minutes?
b) Pizza is free if the delivery takes more than 30 minutes. What
is the probability of getting a free pizza from a single order?
c) During final exams, a student plans to order pizza five
consecutive evenings. Assume that these delivery times are
independent of each other. What is the probability that the
student will get at least one free pizza?
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 Solution:
Let d be the delivery time for a pizza. Then, we know that d∼N(20, 4).
(a) The probability that the delivery time is between 15 and 20 minutes is

P(15  d  25)
 15 - 20 25  20 
 P Z  
 4 4 
 P(-1.25  Z  1.25)
 FZ (1.25) - FZ (-1.25)
 FZ (1.25) - {1 - FZ (1.25)}
 0.8944 - (1 - 0.8944)
 0.7888

NB: Cumulative distribution function (FZ) of the Standard Normal Distribution

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 (b) The probability of getting a free pizza is
P(d  30)
 d - 20 30  20 
 P  
 4 4 
 P(Z  2.5)
 1 - P(Z  2.5)
 1 - FZ (2.5)
 1 - 0.994
 0.006

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 c) Let X be the number of free pizzas the student gets in 5 deliveries.
This is a binomial random variable with 5 trials and success
probability given by P(d > 30) = 0.01. We are looking for the
probability of at least one success:

P(X  1)  1 - P(X  0)
 1 - P(X  0)
 1 - 5 C 0 (0.006) 0 (0.994) 5
 0.03

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 Problem 02
A soft-drink machine is regulated so that it discharges an average
volume of 200 mL per cup. If the volume of drink discharged is
normally distributed with a standard deviation of 15 mL,
a) what fraction of the cups will contain more than 224 mL
of soft drink?
b) what is the probability that a 175 mL cup will overflow?
c) what is the probability that a cup contains between 191
and 209 mL?
d) below what volume do we get the smallest 25% of the
drinks?
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 Let x be the volume of soft-drink discharged. Then we know that
x~N(200 mL, 15 mL).

a) We must find a right-tail area P(x > 224mL). To do so, we can

use the z-tables if we first calculate Z, the Z-score of x=224.
Px  224mL
 x  x 224  200 
 P  

 σ 15 
 PZ  1.6  1 - P(Z  1.6)  1 - FZ (1.6)
 1 - 0.9452  0.0548
So 5.48% of the cups will contain more than 224 mL of soft drink.
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 (b) Px  175mL
 x  x 175  200 
 P  

 σ 15 
 PZ  - 1.67   1 - P(Z  1.67)  1 - FZ (1.67)
 1 . 0.0475  0.9525
There is a 95.25% probability that the 175mL cup will overflow.

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 (c) P (191 mL  x  209 mL)
 191 - 200 x  200 209  200 
 P   
 15 15 15 
 P (- 0.6  Z   0.6)
 FZ (0.6) - FZ (- 0.6)  FZ (0.6) - {1 - FZ (0.6)}
 2  0.7257 - 1  0.4514

So there is a 45.14% probability that a cup contains 191 – 209 mL.

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d) This question is a little bit different than the others. We must find a value x0
such that P(x < x0) = 0.25. In all of the previous examples, we began with a
value (or a range of values) and then calculated a probability; now we are doing
the reverse — we must calculate the value associated with a stated probability.
 x  200 x 0  200 
P    0.25
 15 15 
 P(z   0.675)  0.25
Our next task is to convert this z - score into a volume; in other words, we
want to ―de - standardize‖ the value z 0   0.675 to obtain x 0 , the volume
that corresponds to this z - score.
x 0  200
 0.675   x 0  189.9 mL
15
Thus, we have determined that the drink volume will be less than 189.9mL
with probability 25%.

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 Problem 03
The time needed to complete a final examination in a NSU course is
normally distributed with a mean of 80 minutes and a standard deviation
of 10 minutes.
a) What is the probability of completing the exam in one hour or
less?
b) What is the probability that a student will complete the exam in
more than 60 minutes but less than 75 minutes?
c) Assume that the class has 60 students and that the examination
period is 90 minutes in length. How many students do you expect
will be unable to complete the exam in the allotted time?

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 Solution:
a) Let X be the number of minutes to complete the examination and we know
that X  N(80 minutes, 10 minutes)
P(X  60 minutes)
 x  80 60  80 
 P  
 10 10 
 P Z  2
 1  P (Z  2)
 1  0.9772
 0.0228
P(X  60 minutes)  P(Z  - 2)  0.0228
2.28% probability of completing the exam in one hour or less?

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 (b) P (60 minutes  x  75 minutes)
 60 - 80 x  80 75  80 
 P   
 10 10 10 
 P (- 2  Z  - 0.5)
 1 - FZ (-0.5) - {1 - FZ (2)}
 FZ (2) - FZ (0.5)
 0.9772 - 0.6915
 0.2857
So there is a 28.57% probability that exam will be complited 60 – 75 minutes.

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 c. P(X > x) = 20%, x=?
• X  Z:
Key: Which side is x?
The z and x are on the same side.

• P(Z < z) = 1- P(Z > z) = 1 - .20 = 0.8

z ≈ 0.84 (P(Z < z) = .7995 closest to .8)
• z  x:
x=x+zx
x = 27 + (.84)(8) = 33.72

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 Problem 04
A survey indicates that people use their cellular phones an
average of 1.5 years before buying a new one. The standard
deviation is 0.25 year. A cellular phone user is selected at
random. Find the probability that the user will use their current
phone for less than 1 year before buying a new one. Assume that
the variable x is normally distributed.

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 Solution
The graph shows a normal curve with µ = 1.5 and σ = 0.025 and a shaded area for x less than 1.
The z-score that corresponds to 1 year is
The Standard Normal Table shows that
The probability that the
user will use their cellular phone for less than
1 year before buying a new one is 0.0228.
Interpretation
So, 2.28% of cellular phone users will use their cellular phone for less than 1 year before buying a new
one. Because 2.28% is less than 5%, this is an unusual event.

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