Step 1 :The critical value $z_{\alpha / 2}$ corresponds to the z-score that cuts off the upper $\alpha / 2$ area in the tail of the standard normal distribution.
Step 2 :In this case, we are given a confidence level of $99 \%$, which means $\alpha = 1 - 0.99 = 0.01$.
Step 3 :Therefore, we need to find the z-score that cuts off the upper $0.01 / 2 = 0.005$ area in the tail of the standard normal distribution.
Step 4 :We can use the inverse of the cumulative distribution function (CDF) to find this z-score.
Step 5 :We need to input $1 - 0.005 = 0.995$ into the inverse CDF function to find the z-score that cuts off the upper $0.005$ area in the tail of the standard normal distribution.
Step 6 :The critical value $z_{\alpha / 2}$ that corresponds to the given confidence level $99 \%$ is \(\boxed{2.58}\).