The pregnancy length in days for a population of new mothers can be approximated by a normal distribution with a mean of 270 days and a standard deviation of 8 days. ​(a) What is the minimum pregnancy length that can be in the top 8​% of pregnancy​ lengths? ​(b) What is the maximum pregnancy length that can be in the bottom 3​% of pregnancy​ lengths?

Respuesta :

Answer:

a) 281 days.

b) 255 days

Step-by-step explanation:

Problems of normally distributed samples are solved using the z-score formula.

In a set with mean [tex]\mu[/tex] and standard deviation [tex]\sigma[/tex], the zscore of a measure X is given by:

[tex]Z = \frac{X - \mu}{\sigma}[/tex]

The Z-score measures how many standard deviations the measure is from the mean. After finding the Z-score, we look at the z-score table and find the p-value associated with this z-score. This p-value is the probability that the value of the measure is smaller than X, that is, the percentile of X. Subtracting 1 by the pvalue, we get the probability that the value of the measure is greater than X.

In this problem, we have that:

[tex]\mu = 270, \sigma = 8[/tex]

​(a) What is the minimum pregnancy length that can be in the top 8​% of pregnancy​ lengths?

100 - 8 = 92th percentile.

X when Z has a pvalue of 0.92. So X when Z = 1.405.

[tex]Z = \frac{X - \mu}{\sigma}[/tex]

[tex]1.405 = \frac{X - 270}{8}[/tex]

[tex]X - 270 = 1.405*8[/tex]

[tex]X = 281[/tex]

(b) What is the maximum pregnancy length that can be in the bottom 3​% of pregnancy​ lengths?

3rd percentile.

X when Z has a pvalue of 0.03. So X when Z = -1.88

[tex]Z = \frac{X - \mu}{\sigma}[/tex]

[tex]-1.88 = \frac{X - 270}{8}[/tex]

[tex]X - 270 = -1.88*8[/tex]

[tex]X = 255[/tex]