College

**Pay Your Bills**

In a large sample of customer accounts, a utility company determined that the average number of days between when a bill was sent out and when the payment was made is 25, with a standard deviation of 7 days. Assume the data is approximately bell-shaped.

**Part 1 of 3**

(a) Between what two values will approximately [tex]$95\%$[/tex] of the numbers of days be?

Approximately [tex]$95\%$[/tex] of the customer accounts have payments made between 11 and 39 days.

**Part 2 of 3**

(b) Estimate the percentage of customer accounts for which the number of days is between 18 and 32.

(Choose one) of the customer accounts have payments made between 18 and 32 days.

Answer :

We begin by noting that the number of days between when a bill is sent and when the payment is made is approximately normally distributed with a mean of [tex]$25$[/tex] days and a standard deviation of [tex]$7$[/tex] days.

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Step 1: Approximately 95% of the data

For a normally distributed variable, approximately [tex]$95\%$[/tex] of the values fall within [tex]$2$[/tex] standard deviations of the mean. That is, the interval is given by

[tex]$$
\text{Mean} \pm 2 \times \text{Standard Deviation}.
$$[/tex]

Substitute the given values:

- Lower bound:
[tex]$$
25 - 2 \times 7 = 25 - 14 = 11 \text{ days}.
$$[/tex]
- Upper bound:
[tex]$$
25 + 2 \times 7 = 25 + 14 = 39 \text{ days}.
$$[/tex]

Thus, approximately [tex]$95\%$[/tex] of the customer accounts have the payment made between [tex]$11$[/tex] and [tex]$39$[/tex] days.

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Step 2: Estimating the percentage for days between [tex]$18$[/tex] and [tex]$32$[/tex]

Next, we estimate the percentage of accounts for which the number of days falls between [tex]$18$[/tex] and [tex]$32$[/tex]. We first convert these values to [tex]$z$[/tex]-scores using the formula

[tex]$$
z = \frac{\text{Value} - \text{Mean}}{\text{Standard Deviation}}.
$$[/tex]

For [tex]$18$[/tex] days:
[tex]$$
z = \frac{18 - 25}{7} = \frac{-7}{7} = -1.
$$[/tex]

For [tex]$32$[/tex] days:
[tex]$$
z = \frac{32 - 25}{7} = \frac{7}{7} = 1.
$$[/tex]

The probability that a normally distributed variable falls between [tex]$z = -1$[/tex] and [tex]$z = 1$[/tex] is approximately [tex]$68.27\%$[/tex].

Thus, about [tex]$68\%$[/tex] of the customer accounts have the payment made between [tex]$18$[/tex] and [tex]$32$[/tex] days.

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Final Answers:

(a) Approximately [tex]$95\%$[/tex] of the customer accounts have payment made between [tex]$11$[/tex] and [tex]$39$[/tex] days.

(b) Approximately [tex]$68\%$[/tex] of the customer accounts have payment made between [tex]$18$[/tex] and [tex]$32$[/tex] days.