Assignment 5 Economics 31 Fall 1999
Normal Curves, Z-tests, and Sample Distributions
Reading: Mirer Chpt. 9,10, pg.218-224, 18.1 Beals Chpt 6
1. Seniors at New Canaan High School who take the SAT's have
scores that
are normally distributed with a mean of 1130 and a standard deviation
of
200. Seniors at Greenwich High School, have scores that are
normally
distributed with a mean of 1078 and a standard deviation of 250. A
student
qualifies for a state honorary society if his or her score exceeds
1490.
a. For a randomly chosen senior from New Canaan, what is the
probability
that his or her score on the test will qualify the student for the
state
honorary society?
b. For a randomly selected senior from Greenwich, what is the
probability
that his or her score will qualify the student for the state honorary
society?
c. If we randomly and independently select from each high school,
what is
the probability that at least one of these two students qualifies for
the
state honorary society?
2.The percentage of children born in 1995 in Illinois to unwed
mothers was
.34. If you sampled 100 births in 1995, what is the probability
that
between 20 and 30 of them were born to unwed mothers?
(http://www.childrensdefense.org/states/data_il.html#population)
3. A computer firm offers a paid leave of absence to its engineers
who wish
to get an advanced degree. However, applicants are tested and
their
aptitude test scores must indicate a superb chance of success (as
defined
by z-scores of +2 or better). In one test, applicants A through F
earned
raw scores of 500, 631, 760, 438, 598, and 720. The mean score of all
200
applicants was 520, the standard deviation was 60. Who among the six
will
go back to school?
4. The mean length of airplane flights from New York to Washington
is 72
minutes with a standard deviation of 15 minutes (normal
distribution).
a) What proportion of all flights last between 60 and 80 minutes?
b) Thirty three percent of all flights last longer than how many minutes?
c) What proportion of all flights last less than 45 minutes?
d) If 100 flights are chosen at random, what is the probability
that at
least 25 of these flights last less than 60 minutes?
5. You speculate in foreign currencies. You hold a 30-day option
to buy
pounds sterling at $1.50 a pound and you have sold a 30-day contract
to
sell pounds sterling at $1.32. You will exercise your buy option if
the
current price of the pound goes above $1.50 because you will be able
to
resell any pounds that you have purchased and pocket the difference
between
the current price and $1.50. Similarly, if the pound is above $1.32,
you
know that the holder of the contract you wrote to sell will exercise
his
option. If the distribution of possible current prices for the pound
was
approximately normal for the 30-day period with a mean of $1.40 and
a
standard deviation of 10 cents, what is the probability that you will
have
to honor your sell contract but not exercise your buy option?
6. Suppose the average yield of the stocks listed in the
Standard and
Poor's index of 500 leading companies was 15% over the past year with
a
standard deviation of 3%. The yield is made up of dividend, changes
in the
price of the stock, and stock splits. Your investment advisor
suggested a
portfolio of 10 stocks from the Standard and Poor's list at the
beginning
of the year and the average yield of these stocks was 9%. If you had
chosen
10 stocks at random from the list of 500, what is the probability
that you
would have done as badly as or worse than your investment advisor?
Assume
that the distribution of yields is approximately normal.