Final answer:
Almost all (99.7%) of the students spent between $175 and $295 on textbooks in a semester.
Step-by-step explanation:
To determine how much almost all (99.7%) of the students spent on textbooks in a semester, we can use the standard deviation rule for a normal distribution. According to the rule, approximately 99.7% of the values fall within 3 standard deviations of the mean.
Given that the mean is $235 and the standard deviation is $20, we can calculate the range by multiplying the standard deviation by 3 and adding/subtracting the result to/from the mean. So, the range is ($235 - $20 * 3) to ($235 + $20 * 3), which is $175 to $295.
Therefore, almost all (99.7%) of the students spent between $175 and $295 on textbooks in a semester.