Indian Institute of Technology Ropar

Department of Mathematics
MA630: Introduction to Applied Statistical Methods
1st Semester of Academic Year 2025-26
Tutorial Sheet 6

Note: Bring your laptops for the tutorial session fully charged having Jamovi and RStudio installed.
1. A researcher wants to estimate the average GPA of students at Ropar. A random sample of 𝑛 = 160 students is collected,
yielding a sample mean of 𝑥 = 3.39 and a sample standard deviation of 𝑠 = 0.66.
Using this information, compute the standard error of the mean, the approximate 95% margin of error, and construct
the corresponding 95% confidence interval for the population mean GPA.
2. A factory manager wants to estimate the average lifetime of light bulbs produced in a plant. He wishes to take a
sample large enough so that, with probability 0.95, the sample mean will not differ from the true mean lifetime by more
than 25% of the population standard deviation. How many light bulbs should he test? Given that for 𝑍 ∼ 𝑁(0, 1),
𝑃 (|𝑍| < 1.96) = 0.95.
3. The city water department observes that the standard deviation of daily water consumption is known to be 𝜎 = 60 liters.
A random sample of 𝑛 = 40 households shows an average consumption of 𝑥̄ = 520 liters. Construct a 95% confidence
interval for the true average daily water consumption per household in the city.
4. An artisanal bakery wants to estimate the average weight of its newly baked chocolate cookies. They randomly select
10 cookies from today’s batch and weigh them. The measured weights (in grams) yield a sample mean of 85 g and a
sample standard deviation of 4 g.
Based on this sample, construct a 95% confidence interval for the true average weight of a cookie. Use 𝑡9 (0.025) =
2.262
5. According to health experts, adults are recommended to sleep between 7–9 hours per night for good health. We suspect
that people who work night shifts sleep fewer hours on average than people who work day shifts. On a particular
week, we randomly sampled 8 employees working day shifts and 8 employees working night shifts. We recorded each
person’s average nightly sleep duration (in hours).
We are interested in drawing inference on the difference in the population average sleep duration for people in the
day-shift group vs. the night-shift group. The data are given in the table below.

Day-Shift Group 7.8 6.9 7.4 8.2 7.5 7.1 8.0 7.6
Night-Shift Group 6.2 5.9 6.5 6.7 5.8 6.1 6.4 5.7

Assuming independent Normal distributions for the two groups with equal variance, manually construct a 95% confi-
dence interval for 𝜇day − 𝜇night . Given that 𝑡14 (0.025) = 2.144787. Also obtain the same using Jamovi and R. What is
your statistical conclusion?
6. A company wants to compare the average weekly working hours of employees in the IT department and the Finance
department. Random samples of employees were taken and the results (in hours per week) are shown below:

IT (n = 8) 42 47 45 50 44 48 46 49
Finance (n = 6) 38 36 40 35 39 37

Assume the two groups are independent and normally distributed, but the population variances are not equal.
Construct a 95% confidence interval for 𝜇IT − 𝜇Finance . State your conclusion clearly.
7. A nutritionist is studying the daily protein intake (in grams) of two groups of athletes: swimmers and runners. Random
samples were taken and the results are as follows:
• For swimmers: sample size 𝑛1 = 50, sample mean 𝑋̄ 1 = 82 g, population standard deviation 𝜎1 = 10 g.
• For runners: sample size 𝑛2 = 60, sample mean 𝑋̄ 2 = 78 g, population standard deviation 𝜎2 = 8 g.
Construct an approximate 95% and 99% confidence interval for the 𝜇swimmers − 𝜇runners .. What is your statistical
conclusion?
8. A health researcher wants to test whether a new dietary supplement affects blood pressure. She measures the systolic
blood pressure (in mmHg) of 10 volunteers just before they start the supplement and then again after 4 weeks on the
supplement. The paired measurements are given below (Before → After):
 Before 128 142 135 150 132 140 138 145 136 148
After 122 138 130 146 129 135 131 140 132 142

Assuming the paired differences are approximately Normal, construct a 95% confidence interval for the mean change
(Before − After). Also perform this in R and Jamovi and state your conclusion about whether the supplement changes
systolic blood pressure.
9. An educational institution implemented a new teaching method in a random sample of 15 classrooms. The students’
scores on a standardized math test were recorded before and after the implementation. The data is as follows:

Classroom Pre-Test Score Post-Test Score

1 78 85
2 82 88
3 75 80
4 90 92
5 84 87
6 77 83
7 80 85
8 85 89
9 79 84
10 88 91
11 76 81
12 81 86
13 83 88
14 89 93
15 78 82
Construct a 99% confidence interval for the mean change in scores. (Given: 𝑡14 (0.005) = 2.145)
10. A group of 12 participants enrolled in a 6-month weight loss program. Their weights (in kilograms) were measured
before and after the program. The data is as follows:

Participant Pre-Program Weight (kg) Post-Program Weight (kg)

1 85 80
2 90 85
3 95 89
4 88 83
5 92 87
6 87 82
7 93 88
8 89 84
9 91 86
10 94 89
11 86 81
12 90 85
Construct a 95% confidence interval for the mean change in scores. Given that 𝑡11 (0.005) = 2.201. Also obtain the
same using Jamovi and R. What is your statistical conclusion?
11. You have a sample of 17 observations representing the heights of adult oak trees in a forest:

12.5, 13.1, 12.8, 13.4, 14.0, 12.9, 13.2, 13.6, 12.7, 13.8, 12.4, 13.3, 14.1, 13.0, 13.5, 12.6, 14.2

(a) Using the above sample, generate 1,000 samples using sample function in R (sampling with replacement), each
of size 17, and compute the mean height for each sample.
(b) From these simulated means, construct a 95% confidence interval for the true mean height.

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