Researchers at a pharmaceutical company have found that the effective time duration of a safe dosage of a pain relief drug is normally distributed with mean 2 hours and standard deviation 0.3 hour. For a patient selected at random:

a) What is the probability that the drug will be effective for 2 hours or less?
b) What is the probability that the drug will be effective for 1 hour or less?
c) What is the probability that the drug will be effective for 3 hours or more?

Solution

Let $X$ denote the effective time duration of a safe dosage of a pain relief drug.

Given that the population mean $\mu = 2$ and the population standard deviation $\sigma = 0.3$.

a. The probability that the drug will be effective for 2 hours or less is

$$ \begin{aligned} P(X\leq 2) & = P\bigg(\frac{X-\mu}{\sigma} \leq \frac{2-2}{0.3} \bigg)\\ & = P\big(Z\leq 0 \big)\\ &= 0.5 \end{aligned} $$

zgraph-1

b. The probability that the drug will be effective for 1 hours or less is

$$ \begin{aligned} P(X\leq 1) & = P\bigg(\frac{X-\mu}{\sigma} \leq \frac{1-2}{0.3} \bigg)\\ & = P\big(Z\leq -3.33 \big)\\ &= 0.0004 \end{aligned} $$

Z-left area

c. The probability that the drug will be effective for 3 hours or more

$$ \begin{aligned} P(X\geq 3) & = 1-P\bigg(\frac{X-\mu}{\sigma} \leq \frac{3-2}{0.3} \bigg)\\ & = 1-P\big(Z\leq 3.33 \big)\\ &= 1- 0.9996\\ &=0.0004 \end{aligned} $$

Z right area

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