Question

A coal company wants to determine a 95% confidence interval estimate for the average daily tonnage of coal that they mine. Assuming that the company reports that the standard deviation of daily output is 200 tons, how many days should they sample so that the margin of error will be 39.2 tons or less?   

Answer 1

Solution

standard deviation =   =200

Margin of error = E = 39.2

At 95% confidence level the z is ,

= 1 - 95% = 1 - 0.95 = 0.05

/ 2 = 0.05 / 2 = 0.025

Z/2 = Z0.025 = 1.96

sample size = n = [Z/2* / E] 2

n = ( 1.96*200 / 39.2 )2

n =100

Sample size = n =100