Question

A researcher conducted a study of the access speed of 40 hard drives and concluded that his maximum error of estimate was 15. If he were to conduct a second study to reduce the maximum error of estimate to 5, about how many hard drives should he include in his new sample?

Answer 1

About 13 hard drives

Step-by-step explanation:

Using the rule of three, if studying the access speed of 40 hard drives gives the maximum estimate error of 15, then we multiply 5 (which is the number of estimates that are sought in a second attempt) by 40 hard drives divided by 15 as maximum estimate number. We get a total of 13.33, therefore we would need an approximate of 13 hard drives to reduce the maximum estimation error to 5.

40 hard drives ---- 15

13.33 hard drives ---- 5

(40 * 5) / 15 = 13.33 hard drives