Lesson 5: Locating Percentiles

under the Normal Curve

Week 4
Learning competency:
 At the end of the lesson, the learner computes probabilities
and percentiles using the standard normal table. M11/12SP-
IIIc-d1
Think about this

- What does this mean to you?

Think about this

- What does this mean to you?

The Percentile or Centile
• A percentile is a measure used in statistics
indicating the value below which a given
percentage of observations in a group of
observations fall.
• A point in the distribution such that a given
number of cases is below for any seat of
measurement arranged in ascending or
descending order.
Example 1: Imagine you took a standardized test and you scored 91
at the 89th percentile. This means that 89% of the examiners scored
lower than 91 and 11% scored higher than 91. This explains that
89th percentile is located where 89% of the total population lies
below and 11% lies above that point.
To illustrate the 89th percentile of the normal curve here are
the steps:
1.Express the given percentage as probability, remember
89% is the same as 0.8900.
2.Using the z-table, locate the area of 0.8900.
3.There is no area corresponding exactly to 0.8900. It is
between of 0.8888 with a corresponding z - score of 1.22
and 0.8907 with a corresponding z - score of 1.23. The
nearest value to 0.8900 is 0.8907 and therefore, the
distribution lies below z = 1.22.
Example 1: Imagine you took a standardized test and you scored 91
at the 89th percentile. This means that 89% of the examiners scored
lower than 91 and 11% scored higher than 91. This explains that
89th percentile is located where 89% of the total population lies
below and 11% lies above that point.
Construct a normal curve and shade the region to the left of 1.22.
Activity 1:

3.