A store-bought pregnancy test produces a correct result 99% of the time when a woman is actually pre

Craig Mendoza

Craig Mendoza

Answered question

2022-06-22

A store-bought pregnancy test produces a correct result 99% of the time when a woman is actually pregnant but is only 97% accurate when a woman is not pregnant. What are the chances of a false positive and a false negative respectively?
So I have tried to solve it and is the false positive 3%? SO, false positive is when the result shows positive despite her not being pregnant. And for her not being pregnant , the test is 97% accurate. Then, the false positive should be 100-97%?

Answer & Explanation

stigliy0

stigliy0

Beginner2022-06-23Added 21 answers

Correct. A false positive means that the test indicates pregnancy when she is not actually pregnant. And since the test is 97 % accurate when the woman is not pregnant, this implies that the test is wrong 3 % of the time in such cases--i.e., produces a positive result when she is not pregnant.
A similar idea applies to the false negative: since the test is 99 % accurate when a woman is pregnant, this means it returns a positive result 99 % of the time when a woman is pregnant, and it fails to detect pregnancy 1 % of the time (returns negative result) when the woman is pregnant.

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