Problem

SAT scores are distributed with a mean of 1,500 and a standard deviation of 300. You are interested in estimating the average SAT score of first year students at your college. If you would like to limit the margin of error of your $95 \%$ confidence interval to 25 points, how many students should you sample?
Make sure to give a whole number answer.

Answer

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Answer

Final Answer: The number of students that should be sampled is \(\boxed{554}\).

Steps

Step 1 :The problem is asking for the sample size needed to estimate the average SAT score with a certain level of confidence and margin of error. This is a problem of determining sample size for estimating a population mean.

Step 2 :The formula for the sample size n is given by: \(n = (Z*σ/E)^2\) where: Z is the z-score corresponding to the desired confidence level (for a 95% confidence level, Z = 1.96), σ is the standard deviation of the population, E is the desired margin of error.

Step 3 :We can plug in the given values into this formula to find the required sample size. Given that the mean = 1500, standard deviation = 300, margin of error = 25, and z-score = 1.96.

Step 4 :By substituting the given values into the formula, we get the sample size = 554.

Step 5 :Final Answer: The number of students that should be sampled is \(\boxed{554}\).

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