Suppose that the exam scores for students in a large university course are normally distributed with an unknown mean and standar
d deviation. The scores of 42 randomly sampled students in the course are used to estimate the mean of the population. What t-score should be used to find the 99% confidence interval for the population mean? df...4041424344t0.10…1.3031.3031.3021.3021.301t0.05…1.6841.6831.6821.6811.680t0.025…2.0212.0202.0182.0172.015t0.01…2.4232.4212.4182.4162.414t0.005…2.7042.7012.6982.6952.692 Use the portion of the table above or a calculator. If you use a calculator, round your answer to three decimal places.
When we calculate a confidence interval with an unknown population standard deviation, we estimate it from the sample standard deviation and use the t-score instead of the z-score.
The critical value for t depends on the level of confidence and the degrees of freedom.
If the sample size is 42, the degrees of freedom are:
For a confidence level of 99% and 41 degrees of freedom, the critical value of t is t=2.701.