High school students across the nation compete in a financial capability challenge each year by taking a National Financial Capability Challenge Exam. Students who score in the top 12% are recognized publicly for their achievement by the Department of the Treasury. Assuming a normal distribution, how many standard deviations above the mean does a student have to score to be publicly recognized?
Q. High school students across the nation compete in a financial capability challenge each year by taking a National Financial Capability Challenge Exam. Students who score in the top 12% are recognized publicly for their achievement by the Department of the Treasury. Assuming a normal distribution, how many standard deviations above the mean does a student have to score to be publicly recognized?
Question Prompt: question_prompt: How many standard deviations above the mean does a student need to score to be in the top 12%?
Find Cumulative Area: In a normal distribution, the top 12% corresponds to the area to the right under the curve. We need to find the z-score that corresponds to the cumulative area of 0.88 (since 100%−12%=88%).
Use Z-Table or Calculator: We can use a z-table or a calculator to find the z-score that corresponds to the cumulative area of 0.88. Looking at the z-table, we find that the z-score is approximately 1.175.
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