The time required for a citizen to complete the 2010 U.S. Census "long" form is normally distributed with a mean of 40 minutes and a standard deviation of 10 minutes. The lowest 10 percent of the citizens would need at least how many minutes to complete the form

Respuesta :

Answer:

The lowest 10 percent of the citizens would need at least 52.8 minutes to complete the form.

Step-by-step explanation:

Problems of normally distributed samples are solved using the z-score formula.

In a set with mean [tex]\mu[/tex] and standard deviation [tex]\sigma[/tex], the zscore of a measure X is given by:

[tex]Z = \frac{X - \mu}{\sigma}[/tex]

The Z-score measures how many standard deviations the measure is from the mean. After finding the Z-score, we look at the z-score table and find the p-value associated with this z-score. This p-value is the probability that the value of the measure is smaller than X, that is, the percentile of X. Subtracting 1 by the pvalue, we get the probability that the value of the measure is greater than X.

In this problem, we have that:

[tex]\mu = 40, \sigma = 10[/tex]

The slowest 10 percent of the citizens would need at least how many minutes to complete the form

This is the value of X when Z has a pvalue of 0.9. So it is X when Z = 1.28.

[tex]Z = \frac{X - \mu}{\sigma}[/tex]

[tex]1.28 = \frac{X - 40}{10}[/tex]

[tex]X - 40 = 1.28*10[/tex]

[tex]X = 52.8[/tex]

The lowest 10 percent of the citizens would need at least 52.8 minutes to complete the form.