Question

The numerical course grades in a statistics course can be approximated by a normal model with a mean of 70 and a standard deviation of 10. The professor must convert the numerical grades to letter grades. She decides that she wants 10% A's, 30% B's, 40% C's, 15% D's, and 5% F's. a. What is the cutoff for an A grade?

Answer 1

The cutoff for an A grade is 82.8.

Explanation:

Problems of normally distributed samples are solved using the z-score formula.

In a set with mean
`\mu` and standard deviation
`\sigma`, the zscore of a measure X is given by:

`Z = (X - \mu)/(\sigma)`

The Z-score measures how many standard deviations the measure is from the mean. After finding the Z-score, we look at the z-score table and find the p-value associated with this z-score. This p-value is the probability that the value of the measure is smaller than X, that is, the percentile of X. Subtracting 1 by the pvalue, we get the probability that the value of the measure is greater than X.

In this problem, we have that:

`\mu = 70, \sigma = 10`

a. What is the cutoff for an A grade?

The top 10% of the class get an A grade. So the cutoff is the value of X when Z has a pvalue of 1-0.1 = 0.9. So it is X when Z = 1.28

`Z = (X - \mu)/(\sigma)`

`1.28 = (X - 70)/(10)`

`X - 70 = 1.28*10`

`X = 82.8`

The cutoff for an A grade is 82.8.