The standard deviation rule tells us that for distributions that have the normal shape, approximately 99.7% of the observations fall within 3 standard deviations of the mean.
Here, Mean = 235 and Standard deviation= 20
So, 3 standard deviation below the mean= Mean- 3 standard deviation
= 235 - (3× 20)
= 235 - 60 = 175
and 3 standard deviation above the mean= Mean + 3 standard deviation
= 235 + (3× 20)
= 235 + 60 = 295
So, almost all (99.7%) of the students spent between $175 and $295 on textbooks in a semester.