AQA S2 2009 January — Question 5

Exam BoardAQA
ModuleS2 (Statistics 2)
Year2009
SessionJanuary
TopicHypothesis test of a normal distribution

5 Jane, who supplies fruit to a jam manufacturer, knows that the weight of fruit in boxes that she sends to the manufacturer can be modelled by a normal distribution with unknown mean, \(\mu\) grams, and unknown standard deviation, \(\sigma\) grams. Jane selects a random sample of 16 boxes and, using the \(t\)-distribution, calculates correctly that a \(98 \%\) confidence interval for \(\mu\) is \(( 70.65,80.35 )\).
    1. Show that the sample mean is 75.5 grams.
    2. Find the width of the confidence interval.
    3. Calculate an estimate of the standard error of the mean.
    4. Hence, or otherwise, show that an unbiased estimate of \(\sigma ^ { 2 }\) is 55.6 , correct to three significant figures.
  1. Jane decides that the width of the \(98 \%\) confidence interval is too large. Construct a \(95 \%\) confidence interval for \(\mu\), based on her sample of 16 boxes.
  2. Jane is informed that the manufacturer would prefer the confidence interval to have a width of at most 5 grams.
    1. Write down a confidence interval for \(\mu\), again based on Jane's sample of 16 boxes, which has a width of 5 grams.
    2. Determine the percentage confidence level for your interval in part (c)(i).