Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1/29
3.4 The Normal Curve
1 −(x−µ)2
f (x) = √ e 2σ2
σ 2π
1 The mean, median, and mode are all located at the center of the
distribution.
2 It is symmetric about its mean, median, and mode.
3 It is defined for all values of x between −∞ and ∞. This means that
depictions such as those in the next slide show only a segment of the
curve since it stretches infinitely in either direction.
4 The area encompassed by the curve is equal to one regardless of the
values of µ and σ.
4 8 12
µ=8
σ=1
µ=8
σ=2
Column
(3)
µ Column
(1)
In order to use Appendix A to find areas under the normal curve, points
along the x axis must be expressed as Z scores which are not scale
dependent. The Z score for any point can be found by means of Equation
2.24 as
x −µ
Z=
σ
Given a normal curve with mean 250 and standard deviation 25, what
portion of the curve falls below 220?
.3849 .5000
.1151
220 250
220−250
The Z score associated with 220 is Z = 25 = −1.20.
This indicates that 220 is 1.2 standard deviations below the mean of
the distribution.
Appendix A shows the area in the tail of the curve associated with a
Z score of 1.20 is .1151 which is the answer to the posed question.
Given a normal curve with mean 80 and standard deviation 10, find the
area between 65 and 85.
.4332 .1915
.0668 .3085
65 80 85
The solution cannot be read directly from Table A because this table
does not provide areas between any two arbitrary points but rather
between a point and the mean or the tail area as previously described.
You can find the required area by finding each of the two component
areas and summing.
The Z score for 65 is Z = 65−80
10 = −1.50. Column two shows the
area between 65 and 80 to be .4332.
85−80
The Z score for 85 is Z = 10 = .50 which has an associated area
of .1915.
The area between 65 and 85 is then .4332 + .1915 = .6247.
Given a normal curve with mean 500 and standard deviation 50, find the
area between 555 and 600.
Figure: Area between 555 and 600 where µ = 500 and σ = 50.
.5000 .3643
.1129
.0228
600−500
The Z score for 600 is Z = 50 = 2.00.
Column two shows that the area between 600 and 500 is then .4772.
The Z score for 555 is 1.10
The area between 500 and 555 is .3643.
The area between 600 and 555 is then .4772 − .3643 = .1129.
Given a normal curve with mean .05 and standard deviation .01, find the
area below .0722.
.5000 .4868
.0132
.0500 .0772
Because .05 is the mean of the distribution it has Z score 0.00 which
has an associated tail area of .5.
.0722−.0500
The Z score for .0722 is Z = .01 = 2.22.
Column two shows that the area between .0722 and .0500 is .4868.
The area below .0772 is then .5000 + .4868 = .9868.
.078
111.5
110.5
.1644
99.5
105.5
The estimate is obtained by finding the area between 99.5 and 105.5.
99.5−110.023
The Z score for 99.5 is (approximately) Z = 4.970 = −2.12
which has a corresponding area of .4830.
The Z score and associated area for 105.5 are respectively −.91 and
.3186.
The estimated probability is then .4830 − .3186 = .1644 which
compares favorably to the value of .161 calculated from Table 3.3.
.9049
103.5