0Answer:
False. It applies mainly for the Normal Distribution, but not for all distributions.
Explanation:
The empirical rule (known also as the 68-95-99.7 rule) is particularly applied to the Normal Distribution because of its unique characteristics such as its symmetry and definition by two parameters: the mean and the standard deviation.
That rule indicates that below and above the population's mean, within a distance of one standard deviation, there are 68.27% of the cases that follows this distribution; within two standard deviations, below and above, there are 95.45% of the values, and within three standard deviations 99.73% of the cases. Not all distributions have this characteristic.
Having into account such a characteristic, for populations that follow a Normal Distribution, we can standardize the values for this distribution using for this the mean and the standard deviation, ending up with a standard normal distribution in which this empirical rule is true for all data that follows a normal distribution. Because of this and that the Normal Distribution is symmetrical, we can determine probabilities for all populations that follow this distribution in a relatively easy way.
This can be achieved using the z-scores, that can be obtained using this formula:
Where x is a value for the population,
is the population's mean and
is the standard deviation, to then consulting a standard normal table to find the corresponding probabilities.