Dont forget to add a label so youll know what you put in this cell, for example use, x=102,m=100,sd = 2.

IN THIS EXERCISE USE 'TRUE' SINCE YOU WANT THE AREA UNDER THE CURVE.ģ) a) Enter your score, mean, S.D to different cell in Excel. If cumulative is TRUE, NORMDIST returns the cumulative distribution function if FALSE, it returns the probability mass function. Standard_dev is the standard deviation of the distribution.Ĭumulative is a logical value that determines the form of the function. Mean is the arithmetic mean of the distribution. X is the value for which you want the distribution. NORMDIST( x, mean, standard_dev, cumulative) Excel has several functions that will let you compute areas under the curve directly from your scores without standardizing them first.

In real life, we usually deal with normal distributions that are not standardized, so they are not expressed in z scores. What would you get if you used a p = 0.97724 (you should get a value close to 2, your z from #1) Try other values of p in order to get a better feeling for the use of this function, for example 0.5,0.99. (if you used p=0.975, you should get a z score of 1.95996. a) Pick a cell and enter a probability into it (for example 0.975), dont forget to add a label so youll know what you put in this cell.ī) In a cell next to it, enter the function NORMSINV(probability), use the address of the cell where you placed the probability.NORMSINV will return a z score that corresponds to an area under the curve. The distribution has a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. Returns the inverse of the standard normal cumulative distribution. Probability is a probability corresponding to the normal distribution. Try other values of z in order to get a better feeling for the use of this function, for example 0,1,5,-1,-3) (if you used z=2, you should get an area of 0.97724 or in other words, more than 97% of the population have scores lower then your z. a) Pick a cell and enter a z score into it (for example 2), dont forget to add a label so youll know what you put in this cell.ī) In a cell next to it, enter the function NORMSDIST(Z), use the address of the cell where you placed the z score as your z value.Use this function in place of a table of standard normal curve areas. The distribution has a mean of 0 (zero) and a standard deviation of one. Returns the standard normal cumulative distribution function. Z is the value for which you want the distribution. Excel Basics Finding areas under the normal distributionĮxcel Basics Finding areas under the normal distribution.Įxcel has some very useful functions for finding areas under the normal distribution.

Using a standard normal table