ESTIMATION AND SAMPLING

Question No. 1 (Section-2 April 1991)

Given the population 2, 4, 8, 8, 10, 10. Draw samples of size n= 2 without replacement from this
population.
Question No. 2 Section II November 1996
A random sample of a large organization claimed an average of Rs. 576 as medical expense during a
month with a standard deviation of Rs. 300.
Find a 90% confidence interval for the means medical expense of the organization during that month.
Given: Z0.05 = 1.645
Question No.3 Section II October 1997
a) Draw all possible samples of size 3 without replacement from the population 15, 9, 24, 6,
18.
i) Find mean of each sample.
ii) Verify that mean of sample means is equal to the population mean.
Question No. 4 Section II April 1998
A random sample of 150 cars on a certain bridge shows a mean speed of 89.9 km/hr and a standard
deviation of 15.2 km/hr.
Construct a 95% confidence interval for the mean speed of cars on this bridge.
Question No. 5 Section II April 1998
Draw all possible samples of size 3 with replacement from the population 6 and 15. Find mean of
each sample. Verify that variance of sample means is one third of the population variance.
Question No.6 Section II April 1998
A random sample of eight observations from a population is given as
2.3 2.3 3.1 2.8 2.6 2.1 2.9 3.2
Find unbiased estimates for the mean and variance of the population.
Question No. 7 Section II September 1998

a) Find a 95% confidence interval for the mean of a normal population if a random sample of 16
values with mean 41.5 inches and standard deviation 9 inches is drawn from this population.
b) In a normal distribution with standard deviation 4, the probability that an observation, selected at
random, exceeds 30 is 0.0606. Find the mean of the distribution.
Question No.8 March 1999
A random sample of 800 apples is taken from an orchard. The masses of these 800 apples can be
summarized by
∑x = 66003 and
∑x2 = 5545519 where x is the mass of an apple. Find:
i) Unbiased estimates for the population mean and variance.
ii) Calculate a 95% confidence interval for the mean mass of an apple.
Question No.9 Autumn 1999
A random sample of 1500 voters reveals that 600 are likely to vote of political party 'A', while the
other polled prefer the party 'B' or are undecided. At the 95% level of confidence, what is the
population percentage of voters who express a preference for the party 'A'.
Question No. 10 spring 2000
The sample statistics are x = 62.7 and n = 17. Find the point estimate for the population mean.
Question No. 11 spring 2000
A hospital administrator wishes to estimate the mean weight of babies born in his hospital. How large
a sample of birth records should he take if he wants 95% confidence level? He also wants the estimate
to be within ± 0.05 pound of the true means weight. Assume that a reasonable estimate of σ is one
pound.
(Z at 95 % cl = 1.96)
Question No. 12 autumn 2000
A Population of n = 5 has a variance of 50. If samples of size n = 3 are selected. Find σ2 when
sampling is done
i) Without replacement
ii) With replacement
Question No. 13. Spring 2001
In estimating population means from sample a 99% assurance is required that sample means is not
different from population mean by more than half of standard deviation.
What should be the minimum size of the sample Z α /2 = 2.58
Question No. 14. Autumn 2001
Calculate standard error of the mean from the following data assuming that population standard
deviation is not known.
X f
1 – 10 17
11 – 20 85
21 – 30 129
31 – 40 200
40 – 50 180
51 – 60 120
61 – 70 32
Question No. 15. Spring 2002
A random sample of size 6 is drawn without replacement from a finite population of size 16. The
standard deviation of the population is 12.
i) Find standard error of mean.
ii) Find standard error of mean if n is increased to 10.
Question No. 16. Autumn 2002
a) A sample of 16 ten-year old girls had a mean weight of 71.54 pounds and a standard deviation of
12 pounds.
i) What assumption is necessary for the validity of the confidence interval
constructed?
ii) What is the estimated standard error of the mean?
iii) Construct a 95% confidence interval for the population mean.
iv) If a 90% confidence interval was to be constructed for population mean from the
above data, would the interval be wider or narrower than 95% confidence interval.
Explain your answer without actually constructing the interval.
b) How large a sample is required to determine the proportion of families in a certain area in need
of medical assistance? It is believed that the proportion cannot be greater than 0.35. A 95%
confidence interval is desired. Estimate should be within 0.05 of the population proportion.
Question No. 17. Spring 2003
The mean monthly income of a random sample of 256 middle level managers of an organization was
Rs. 45,420 with sample standard deviation of Rs. 2,050.
i) What is the point estimate of mean income of all middle level mangers?
ii) What is the 95% confidence interval of mean income of this group?
iii) What are the 95% confidence limits?
Question No. 18. Spring 2003
A population consists of 5 values 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14. How many samples of size 2 are possible, if
i) Sampling is done with replacement
ii) Sampling is done without replacement
Question No. 19. Autumn 2003
A distribution company has two branches at Karachi and Lahore. The branches have determined
following about the sale to the individual customers:
Karachi Branch Lahore Branch
µ 1 = Rs. 11,000 µ 2 = Rs. 8,500
 σ1 = Rs. 1,700 σ2 = Rs. 500
50 customers from each branch are randomly selected.
Required:
To find out the mean and standard error of (x 1 – x 2 )
Question No. 20. Spring 2004
a) A physician wishes to estimate with 95% confidence the mean 'Serum Cholesterol' level of a
population. He wished the estimate to be within 5 units of the true mean. From the previous work,
he has learnt that the appropriate value of σ = 20.How large a sample he should take?
b) The environmental protection officer of a large industrial plant sought to determine the mean
daily amount of Sulphur oxide emitted by the plant. A random sample of 10 days measurements
gave a mean of 9.5 tons per day with standard deviation of 3.24 tons per day. Suppose emissions
per day are normally distributed. Estimate 'µ ' using a 95% confidence interval and interpret your
result.
Question No. 21. Autumn 2004
A population consists of 5 values. Its mean, µ = 24 and standard deviation, σ = 2.83
i) How many samples of size 2 are possible, if sampling is done with replacement? Without
replacement?
ii) Based on all possible samples of size 2, a sampling distribution of means is formed. Find its mean
(µ x and standard error σx).
Question No. 22. Spring 2005
A certain change in a process for manufacturing of component parts is being considered. Samples are
taken using both the existing and the new procedures so as to determine if the new process results in
an improvement. If 75 of 1500 items from the existing procedures are found to be defective and 80 of
2000 items from the new procedure were found to be defective, find a 90% confidence interval for the
true difference in the fraction of defectives between existing and the new process.
Question No. 23. Spring 2005
If we take a sample from an infinite population, what will happen to the standard error of the mean
when the sample size is increased from 60 to 240?
Question No. 24. Autumn 2005
A random sample of the records of 300 students of a college shows that 213 of them have G.P.A

greater than 2.5. Find a 90% confidence, interval for the proportion of students of this college who
have G.P.A greater than 2.5. Interpret your result.a) The length of babies at birth has a mean, µ = 19
inches and a standard deviation, σ = 1.3 inches.
Samples of 100 babies are chosen:
i) Find the mean and standard deviation of the sampling distribution of means.
ii) What is the probability that one of the samples of 100 babies will have a mean less
than 18.7 inches?
b) A survey is being planned to determine the mean amount of time, senior citizens (older than 60
years) watch T.V. A pilot survey indicated that the means time per week is 12 hours with a
standard deviation of 3 hours. It is desired to estimate the mean viewing time within a quarter
hour. 95% confidence level is to be used. How many senior citizens should be surveyed?
Question No. 26. Spring 2006
A random sample of Ph.D. economists had an average income of Rs. 42,300 per month with a
standard deviation of Rs. 4,000.
a) Obtain a 98% confidence interval for the mean income of new Ph. D economists and interpret
your result.
b) How can you increase the precision and still maintain the same level of confidence?
Question No. 27(a). Autumn 2006
Find a 95% confidence interval for the average life time of all the television sets produced by a
company when a random sample of 25 television sets lasted an average of 10,000 hours with a
standard deviation of 1,000 hours. Interpret your result.
Question No. 27(b). Autumn 2007
A person tossed a coin 24,000 times and recorded 12012 heads. You are required to calculate:
i) Point estimate for proportion of heads in the population.
ii) Standard error of the proportion.
iii) 90% confidence interval for the population proportion and interpret the result.
Question No. 28. Spring 2008
The following data were obtained from an experiment designed to estimate the reduction in blood
pressure as a result of following a salt free diet for two weeks:
Before 93 106 87 92 102 95 88 110
After 92 102 89 92 101 96 88 105
Assuming that the blood pressures of the population are normally distributed, find the 98%
confidence interval for the mean reduction in blood pressure.
Question No. 29. Autumn 2008
An advertising company wants to estimate with 97.5% confidence, the number of times a website is
hit during an hour. It has determined that σ = 26.
How large a sample should the company take, if it wishes that the margin of error should not exceed
10?

Question No. 30. Autumn 2008

Sixteen cars of a specific model were selected at random. A test of fuel consumption gave a mean of
26.4 kilometer (km) per liter, with a standard deviation of 2.3 km per liter

Assuming that the km per liter given by all cars of that model has a normal distribution, find a 99%
confidence interval for population mean. Interpret your result.
A random sample of 20 boys was taken to estimate the 98% confidence interval for the mean weight
of boys aged between 14 and 15 years. The 98% confidence interval was found to be 45.5 kg < µ <
51.3 kg. Find the sample mean and sample variance.
Question No. 32. Spring 2010
In measuring reaction time, a psychologist estimated that the standard deviation is 0.05 second. How
large a sample of measurements must he take in order to be 95% confident that the error in his
estimate of mean reaction time will not exceed 0.01 second?
Question No. 33. Autumn 2010
The following results were obtained in an IQ test taken by 50 boys and 60 girls:
Boys Girls
∑x1 = 4910 ∑x2 = 5676
2 2
∑x1 = 537481 ∑x2 = 483515
Find the 90% confidence interval for the difference between the IQ of boys and girls.
Question No. 34. Spring 2011
A college has 500 students. A survey was carried out on 22 students chosen at random, to find out the
average number of siblings. The following data was obtained:
2, 1, 3, 2, 0, 1, 2, 4, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 3, 2, 0, 1, 2, 2, 1, 0, 1
a) Find the 90% confidence interval for the mean number of siblings of the college students.
b) Using the point estimates of the mean and standard deviation, calculate the probability that if
a sample of 50 students is chosen at random, the average number of siblings of the sample
would be more than 1.5.
Question No 35. Autumn 2011
The following data pertains to a sample taken from a normal population:
5, 10, 8, 11, 12, 6, 15, 13, 10
Required:
(i) Find the point estimate for the population mean. (03)
(ii) Construct 95% confidence interval for population mean and interpret your result.(06)
Question No 36. Spring 2012
The following table shows the number of courses being taken by 100 students in a college:
Number of Courses Frequency
4 20
5 50
6 30
(a) Construct a probability distribution table for the number of courses taken by a student picked up
at random from among the above 100 students. (02 marks)
(b) If forty students are selected at random, with replacement, find the probability that the mean
number of courses being taken by them is more than 5.3. (06 marks)
(c) If two students are selected at random, with replacement, find the probability that the mean
number of courses being taken by them is less than 4.7. (03 marks)
Question No 37. Autumn
2012
A television channel has claimed that on average a teenager spends 7 hours each month on viewing
its entertainment programs. An advertising agency wants to carry out a survey to assess the
reasonableness of the above claim. Determine the size of the sample which would be needed in order
to assert with 99% confidence that the error in the above claim does not exceed 30 minutes. Assume
that hours.
Question No 38. Spring
2013
A Production House has carried out a survey to assess the popularity of one of its programs. A
random sample of 2,000 people was selected and they were asked to give their views. The results are
as follows:
Opinion No of persons
Like the program 1,040
Don’t Like the program 650
Don’t know 310
(i) Construct a 97% confidence interval for the proportion of viewers who like the program.
(ii) Based on the interval constructed by you in part (i), can you say with 97% confidence that
majority of the viewers like the program? Would your decision change if the required
confidence level is 92%? (08)
Question No 39. Autumn
2013
Find the probability of getting a sample mean within the range of 1.3% of the population mean, if a
sample of 36 packages is drawn at random from a population having standard deviation of 4% of the
population mean. (06)
Question No 40. Spring 2014
a) A company has purchased a new machinery. The machine was tested for 40 days and its mean
production was found to be 985 units per day with standard deviation of 30 units.
(i) Construct a 95% confidence interval for the mean production of the population.
(ii) Determine the size of the sample which would be needed in order to assert with 99% confidence
that the error in the determination of production capacity does not exceed 10 units. (06)
(b) A university has two campuses. Two batches of 60 students from each campus were surveyed.
Batch A had 15 counts of 85% marks or above, whereas Batch B had 10 counts of 85% or above.
(i) Construct a point estimate for difference between the counts of Batch A and B. (02)
(ii) Calculate the standard deviation of the difference of the above population proportion. (03)