High School

The high temperatures (in degrees Fahrenheit) of a random sample of 8 small towns are:

99.6, 97.3, 97.7, 98.4, 99.2, 99.7, 96.6, 97.8.

Assume high temperatures are normally distributed. Based on this data, find the 90% confidence interval of the mean high temperature of towns. Enter your answer as an open interval (i.e., parentheses), accurate to two decimal places (because the sample data are reported accurate to one decimal place).

90% C.I. =

Answer :

The 95% confidence interval that estimates the population mean is approximately (97.53, 99.05)

What is the confidence interval?

The sample mean of the given data is:

Mean(x') = (99.6 + 97.3 + 97.7 + 98.4 + 99.2 + 99.7 + 96.6 + 97.8)/8

x' = 98.2875

Using standard deviation calculator, we have:

Sample standard deviation: s = 1.132

Because n is not greater than 30, and because we don't know the population standard deviation (sigma), this means we must use a T distribution (instead of a Z distribution)

At 95% confidence and with degrees of freedom = n - 1 = 8 - 1 = 7, the critical t value is roughly t = 1.8946

The lower bound (L) of the confidence interval is

L = x' - t*s/√(n)

L = 98.2875 - (1.8946 * 1.132)/√8

L = 97.53

The upper bound (U) of the confidence interval is:

U = x' + t*s/√(n)

U = 98.2875 + (1.8946 * 1.132)/√8

U = 99.05

The 95% confidence interval that estimates the population mean is approximately (97.53, 99.05)

Answer:

The 90% confidence interval of the mean high temperature of towns is (97.40, 99.17)°F.

Explanation:

To find the 90% confidence interval (CI) of the mean high temperature of towns, we can use the t-distribution since the sample size is small (n = 8) and the population standard deviation is unknown.

First, let's calculate the sample mean ([tex]\( \bar{x} \)[/tex]) and the sample standard deviation ([tex]\( s \)[/tex]) from the given data:

[tex]\[ \text{Sample Mean (\( \bar{x} \))} = \frac{99.6 + 97.3 + 97.7 + 98.4 + 99.2 + 99.7 + 96.6 + 97.8}{8} \][/tex]

[tex]\[ \text{Sample Mean (\( \bar{x} \))} = \frac{786.3}{8} \][/tex]

[tex]\[ \text{Sample Mean (\( \bar{x} \))} = 98.2875 \][/tex]

Next, we calculate the sample standard deviation:

[tex]\[ s = \sqrt{\frac{\sum (x_i - \bar{x})^2}{n - 1}} \][/tex]

Substituting the given values:

[tex]\[ s = \sqrt{\frac{(99.6 - 98.2875)^2 + (97.3 - 98.2875)^2 + \ldots + (97.8 - 98.2875)^2}{8 - 1}} \][/tex]

[tex]\[ s = \sqrt{\frac{4.27625 + 0.459375 + \ldots + 0.409375}{7}} \][/tex]

[tex]\[ s = \sqrt{\frac{12.17625}{7}} \][/tex]

[tex]\[ s \approx \sqrt{1.73946429} \][/tex]

[tex]\[ s \approx 1.31822 \][/tex]

Now, we need to find the critical value (t*) from the t-distribution for a 90% confidence level with [tex]\( n - 1 = 8 - 1 = 7 \)[/tex] degrees of freedom.

Using a t-table or statistical software, we find that [tex]\( t^* \)[/tex] for a 90% confidence level and 7 degrees of freedom is approximately 1.8946.

Finally, we can calculate the margin of error (ME):

[tex]\[ \text{ME} = t^* \times \frac{s}{\sqrt{n}} \][/tex]

Substituting the values:

[tex]\[ \text{ME} = 1.8946 \times \frac{1.31822}{\sqrt{8}} \][/tex]

[tex]\[ \text{ME} \approx 1.8946 \times \frac{1.31822}{2.8284} \][/tex]

[tex]\[ \text{ME} \approx 1.8946 \times 0.4660 \][/tex]

[tex]\[ \text{ME} \approx 0.8829 \][/tex]

Now, we can construct the confidence interval:

[tex]\[ \text{CI} = \left( \bar{x} - \text{ME}, \bar{x} + \text{ME} \right) \][/tex]

[tex]\[ \text{CI} = \left( 98.2875 - 0.8829, 98.2875 + 0.8829 \right) \][/tex]

[tex]\[ \text{CI} = \left( 97.4046, 99.1704 \right) \][/tex]

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