Percentiles
Z Scores
Normal Distributions
MISC
100

The cumulative relative frequency graph shows the distribution of median household incomes for the 50 states and the District of Columbia in a recent year. Use the cumulative relative frequency graph for the state income data to answer each question. At what percentile is California, with a median household income of $57,445?


California is at about the 78th percentile for household income

100

In 2016, the mean number of wins for teams in Major League Baseball was 81 wins with a standard deviation of 10.7 wins.

The Chicago Cubs broke the Curse of the Billy Goat by winning the World Series in 2016. Find and interpret the z-score for the Chicago Cubs, who had 103 wins in 2016.

The number of wins by the Chicago Cubs in 2016 is 2.06 standard deviations above the Major League Baseball mean of 81 wins.

100
Say the alphabet backwards in less than 25 seconds.

If you succeeded, everyone gets 100 points.

100

What is the largest planet in our solar system?

Jupiter

200

The stemplot below shows the number of wins for each of the 30 Major League Baseball teams in 2016.

(a) Find the percentile for the Detroit Tigers, who had 86 wins.

(b) The number of wins for the Cleveland Indians is at the 90th percentile of the distribution. Interpret this value in context. How many wins did the Cleveland Indians have in 2016?

(a) 17/30 = 0.57 or the 57th percentile


(b) The Cleveland Indians had 95 wins in the 2016 season

200

In 2016, the mean number of wins for teams in Major League Baseball was 81 wins with a standard deviation of 10.7 wins.

The Chicago White Sox had a z-score of 20.28. Find the number of wins for the Chicago White Sox for 2016.

The Chicago White Sox had 78 wins in the 2016 season.

200

Chapter 1 quiz scores from Mr. Pastori’s 1-2B class follow an approximately Normal distribution with a mean of 81 and standard deviation of 6.

(a) About what percent of students scored less than 93 on the Chapter 1 test?

(b) A student who scored a 68 would be at about what percentile of the distribution? 

(a) 97.5% of students scored less than 93


(b) About the 1.5th percentile because about 100% − 98.5% = 1.5% of students scored less than or equal to 68

200

What Color is Math?

Blue

300

The cumulative relative frequency graph shows the distribution of median household incomes for the 50 states and the District of Columbia in a recent year. Use the cumulative relative frequency graph for the state income data to answer each question. Estimate and interpret the first quartile of this distribution.


The first quartile of this distribution is the 25th percentile. About 25% of states have median incomes less than or equal to $45,000

300

Take a shot at the trashcan from the podium.

Did you make it? If so, everyone gets 300 points!

300

Find the proportion of observations in a standard Normal distribution that satisfies each of the following statements. 

(a) z < −2.46 

(b) 0.89 < z < 2.46

(a) Table A: 0.0069

(b) Table A: 0.9931 - 0.8133 = 0.1798

300

Which element has the chemical symbol ‘Hg’?

Mercury

400

Play rock-paper-scissors with the person to your right. 

Best 2-out-3 gets the 400 points.

400

Which of the following is closest to the 61st percentile of the standard Normal distribution? 

(a) z = –0.7291 

(b) z = –0.28

(c) z = 0.20 

(d) z = 0.28 

(e) z = 0.7291  

(d) z = 0.28, The percentile in a standard Normal table that is closest to 0.61 is 0.6103, which corresponds to a z-score of 0.28.

400

The amount of sleep that elementary school children get per night follows a Normal distribution with a mean of 9.5 hours and a standard deviation of 0.55 hours. 

(a) Find the proportion of elementary school children who get between 9 and 10 hours of sleep per night. Sketch the Normal curve and shade the area under the curve that is the answer to the question. 

(b) Is it unusual for an elementary school student to get at least 12 hours of sleep? Justify your answer

(a) normalcdf(lower: 9, upper: 10, mean: 9.5, SD: 0.55) = 0.637 

About 63.7% of elementary school children get between 9 and 10 hours of sleep per night

(b) normalcdf(lower: 12, upper: 1000, mean: 9.5, SD: 0.55) ≈ 0 

It is definitely unusual for an elementary school student to get at least 12 hours of sleep per night. About none of the students get this much sleep per night.  

400

What is the mascot UC Santa Cruz athletic teams?

Banana Slugs

500

Three landmarks of baseball achievement are Ty Cobb’s, Ted Williams’s, and George Brett’s. These batting averages cannot be compared directly because the distribution of major league batting averages has changed over the years. Here are the facts: Decade Mean Standard deviation for each player respectively. Find the standardized scores for Cobb, Williams, and Brett. Who had the best performance for the decade he played?

Cobb = 4.15

Williams = 4.26

Brett = 4.07
All three hitters were at least 4 standard deviations above their peers, but Williams’s z-score is the highest

500

The amount of time Ricardo spends brushing his teeth follows a Normal distribution with mean of 1.1 minutes and standard deviation of .435 minutes. How often does Ricardo spend more than 2 minutes brushing his teeth?

Less than 2% of the time

500

At one particular restaurant, large drink cups require lids with a “diameter” of between 3.95 and 4.05 inches. The restaurant’s lid supplier claims that the diameter of its large lids follows a Normal distribution with mean 3.98 inches and standard deviation 0.02 inch. The supplier is considering two changes to reduce to 1% the percentage of its large-cup lids that are too small. One strategy is to adjust the mean diameter of its lids. Another option is to alter the production process, thereby decreasing the standard deviation of the lid diameters. 

If the standard deviation remains at σ = 0.02 inch, at what value should the supplier set the mean diameter of its large-cup lids so that only 1% are too small to fit?

invNorm(area: 0.01, mean: 0, SD: 1) = -2.33. Solving -2.33 = (3.95 - mean)/0.02 gives mean = 4.00 inches.

500

Who is the father of Geometry?

Euclid