A summary of the material covered in this session is available below:

 The normal distribution is one of the most important distributions in statistics.

Data from real experiments/studies is often approximately normal or normally
distributed. We can sometimes convert skewed data into approximately
normal data.
 The shape of the normal curve is determined by the mean and standard
deviation of the distribution. We use Greek letters for normal distributions
modelling a population variable, Latin letters for normal distributions
modelling sample data.
 The mean of a normal distribution moves the peak of the curve left or right.
The standard deviation determines the height and width of the peak. Small
standard deviation leads to a tall and narrow peak while a large standard
deviation leads to a short and a flat peak.
 The total area under any normal curve is 1 or 100%.
 The standard normal distribution is a normal distribution with a mean of zero
and standard deviation of one. Data from a normal distribution can be
“converted” to the standard normal distribution by computing z-
scores: z=(x−μ)/σz=(x−μ)/σ.
 We will use the standard normal distribution to compute areas/proportions
under any normal curve. To compute the area under a normal curve, we :
o Step 1: Draw the normal curve from the question and indicate the
location of the mean (by, say, a line). We then shade the area
under the normal curve that we wish to estimate.
o Step 2: Compute one or more Z scores.
o Step 3: Look up the Z scores from the Standard normal distribution
table. First column of the table contains positive Z scores only.
Therefore, we ignore the sign of our Z score when searching for it
in the first column. Most of the time we will use the last column of
the table to estimate the required area for these questions. Since
the last column gives the area in one tail, this area will be for either
everything less than negative Z, or everything greater than positive
Z. Due to this, we need to keep in mind the sign of our Z score
when interpreting the last column.             

 Reference ranges. The formula for the reference range is μ±(z×σ)μ±(z×σ).

The Z score depends on the type of the reference range. For a 90%
reference range, we need to find a z such that the area under the standard
normal curve between –z and +z is 90% or 0.90. The Z score for a 90%
reference range is then 1.645. Similarly, the Z scores for 95% and 98%
reference ranges are 1.96 and 2.326, respectively.