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Mistake Master · AP Statistics · Unit 3 · Step-Through Animation

The Interval Is a Claim About One Number It Never Sees

You'll learnhow a one-proportion z-interval is assembled from an estimate and a margin of error, which proportion goes into the standard error and why, what the three conditions look like when they are actually checked, what the confidence level is a property of — demonstrated by computing the method's exact capture rate — and the one interpretation sentence that survives grading.

Of 400 randomly selected voters, 248 support a measure. The point estimate is 0.62, and the 95% confidence interval is 0.62 ± 1.96 × 0.0243 — the interval (0.572, 0.668), a range of plausible values for the one number the survey never sees. This page then does something usually left to hand-waving: it computes what "95%" actually describes. Supposing a truth of 0.60, all 401 possible samples of 400 are built into intervals and their capture probabilities summed exactly — the method delivers 94.7%, and the page shows nine ranked samples' intervals, seven catching the truth and the two extreme ones missing it. What 95% does not describe also gets its numbers: the share of voters whose 0-or-1 values land inside the interval is exactly zero, and the chance a future sample proportion lands in this interval works out to 87.7%, not 95%. One sentence survives, and it names the parameter.

8 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · ESTIMATE ± MARGIN OF ERROR · CONDITIONS WITH COUNTS · WHAT 95% MEANS · v1

0.62 ± 0.048 · the method delivers 94.7% exactly · voter values inside the interval: none
Before you start
What you're looking at
The p-hat number line, zoomed in. The blue segment is a 95% confidence interval built from one survey: 248 of 400 voters, so 0.62 ± a margin of error.
The question
The survey never sees the true proportion. What exactly is the interval claiming about it — and what is the "95%" a property of?
Watch for
Step 4 computes the answer instead of asserting it: every possible sample's interval, and the exact fraction that capture the truth.
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