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Approximate mean daily wine production

A vineyard produces an average of 400 barrels of wine per day, with standard deviation 70.

(a) For a random sample of 50 days’ production, is Xˉ\bar X normally distributed? Explain briefly and state its mean and variance.

(b) Find the probability that the sample mean is more than 380.

CJC · Lecture · Example 8

(a) Exact moments, approximate shape

Let XX be the number of barrels produced in one day. The individual distribution is not given as normal. With independent identically distributed daily observations, E(Xˉ)=400E(\bar X)=400 and Var⁡(Xˉ)=702/50=98\operatorname{Var}(\bar X)=70^2/50=98 exactly. The source uses Xˉ≈N(400,98)\bar X\approx N(400,98) by CLT for n=50n=50; normality is approximate, not established as exact.

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(b) Upper-tail calculation

Using that approximation, P(Xˉ>380)≈1−Φ(380−40098)=0.9783241244≈0.978.\begin{aligned}&P(\bar X>380)\approx1\\ &{}-\Phi\left(\frac{380-400}{\sqrt{98}}\right)\\ & =0.9783241244\approx0.978.\end{aligned} Correlated days or a changing production process would require a different variance/model.

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Common mistakes

70 is the population standard deviation; 98 is the sample-mean variance, not its standard deviation.

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