A candidate for a US Representative seat from Indiana hires a polling firm to gauge her percentage of support among voters in her district. a. If a 95% confidence interval with a margin of error of no more than 0.04 is desired, give a close estimate of the minimum sample size that will guarantee that the desired margin of error is achieved. (Remember to round up any result, if necessary.)
b. If a 95% confidence interval with a margin of error of no more than 0.02 is desired, give a close estimate of the minimum sample size necessary to achieve the desired margin of error.

a) The minimum sample size is 601.

b) The minimum sample size is 2401.

Step-by-step explanation:

In a sample with a number n of people surveyed with a probability of a success of , and a confidence level of , we have the following confidence interval of proportions.

In which

z is the zscore that has a pvalue of .

The margin of error is:

For this problem, we have that:

We dont know the true proportion, so we use , which is when we are are going to need the largest sample size.

95% confidence level

So , z is the value of Z that has a pvalue of , so .

a. If a 95% confidence interval with a margin of error of no more than 0.04 is desired, give a close estimate of the minimum sample size that will guarantee that the desired margin of error is achieved. (Remember to round up any result, if necessary.)

This is n for which M = 0.04. So

Rounding up

The minimum sample size is 601.

b. If a 95% confidence interval with a margin of error of no more than 0.02 is desired, give a close estimate of the minimum sample size necessary to achieve the desired margin of error.

Now we want n for which M = 0.02. So

The minimum sample size is 2401.