AP Statistics Confidence Intervals for Means and Proportions

The manager of a city recreation center wants to estimate the percent of city residents who favor a proposal to build a new dog park. To gather data, the manager will select a random sample of city residents. Which of the following is the most appropriate interval for the manager to use for such an estimate?

• A two-sample z -interval for a difference between population proportions.

• A one-sample z -interval for a sample proportion.

• A one-sample z -interval for a difference between population proportions.

• A one-sample z -interval for a population proportion.

• A two-sample z -interval for a difference between sample proportions.

Sue and Javier are working on a statistics project to estimate the proportion of students at their school who have a pet dog. Sue selects a random sample of 81 students from the 2,400 students at their school, and Javier selects a separate random sample of 64 students. They will both construct a 90 percent confidence interval from their estimates. Consider the situation in which the sample proportion from Sue’s sample is equal to the sample proportion from Javier’s sample. Which of the following statements correctly describes their intervals?

• Javier’s interval will have a greater degree of confidence than Sue’s interval will.

• Sue’s interval will have a greater degree of confidence than Javier’s interval will.

• The width of Sue’s interval will be narrower than the width of Javier’s interval.

• The width of Sue’s interval will be the same as the width of Javier’s interval.

• The width of Sue’s interval will be wider than the width of Javier’s interval.

A town council wants to estimate the proportion of residents who are in favor of a proposal to upgrade the computers in the town library. A random sample of 100 residents was selected, and 97 of those selected indicated that they were in favor of the proposal. Is it appropriate to assume that the sampling distribution of the sample proportion is approximately normal?

• No, because the sample is not large enough to satisfy the normality conditions.

• No, because the size of the population is not known.

• Yes, because the sample is large enough to satisfy the normality conditions.

• Yes, because the sample was selected at random.

• Yes, because sampling distributions of proportions are modeled with a normal model.

A sample of 20 cupcakes found the interval for average calories to be (150, 350). Which is the correct interpretation of the 95% confidence interval?

• We are 95% confident that the true mean caloric content can be found with a sample of 150 to 350 cupcakes.

• We are 95% confident that the interval (150, 350) captures the true average caloric content.

• We are 95% confident that a sample of 20 cupcakes will find 250 calories per cupcake.

• None of these are correct.

A quality control specialist at a glass factory must estimate the mean clarity rating for a new batch of glass using a sample of 18 glass sheets from the batch. Past investigations show that clarity ratings are normally distributed. The specialist decides to use a t-distribution rather than a z-distribution because ...

• The t distribution is more accurate than a z distribution.

• Clarity ratings for the entire bacth are normally distributed.

• The t-distribution will create a narrower interval than z.

• The standard deviation for the population is unknown.

In a crash test of 15 troopers, collision repair costs are found to have a distribution that is approximately normal, with a mean of $1800 and a standard deviation of $950. Construct a 99% confidence interval for the repair cost for the population.

• (1070, 2530)

• (1273, 2326)

• (1799, 1801)

• (1776, 1823)

An IQ test was given to a simple random sample of 75 students at a certain college. The sample mean score was 105.2. Scores on this test are known to have a standard deviation of 10. It is desired to construct a 90% confidence interval for the mean IQ scores of the students at the college.

Find the critical value.

• 0.90

• 1.155

• 1.645

• ±1.645

The lifetime of a certain type of batter is known to be normally distributed with a standard deviation of 20 hours. A sample of 50 batteries had a mean lifetime of 120.1 hours. It is desired to construct a 99% confidence interval for the mean lifetime of this type of battery. What is the Confidence Interval to one decimal place?

• (114.5, 125.6)

• (112.8, 127.4)

• (112.82, 127.38)

• (114.56, 125.64)

Thirty randomly selected students took the calculus final. If the sample mean was 92 and the standard deviation was 9.4, construct a 99 percent confidence interval for the mean score of all students from which the sample was gathered.

• 89.08 < μ < 94.92

• 87.27 < μ < 96.73

• 87.29 < μ < 96.71

• 87.77 < μ < 96.23

Which of the following does NOT have an affect on the width of a confidence interval?

• Sample mean

• t*

• Sample standard deviation

• Sample size