How do you find percentiles when given standard deviation and mean?

Answer 1

Each standard deviation represents a certain percentile. So if we use two decimal places, −3 is the 0.13th percentile, −2 the 2.28th percentile, −1 the 15.87th percentile, 0 the 50th percentile , +1 the 84.13th percentile, +2 the 97.72th percentile, and +3 the 99.87th percentile.

The mean, median and mode are all the same it the distribution is normal.

BUT WHY DOES THIS WORK? HOW DO YOU DO IT?

The main idea to make all this work and understandable is that the area under the normal curve is one. So if you have a SD and a mean, you can find the z score.

Then, using a calculator, or a table, or even sometimes just some rules you may have learned like the empirical rule, you can find the area to the left or right of any given z score. This area is actually a percentile!

So for example, if convert a data point to a z - score using the mean and standard deviation ( The formula is z=(x-mean)/standard deviation, by the way), and I look up the probability of that z-score, and say it is .25. Then it is the 25th percentile.

The table below gives you all the percentiles and their corresponding z scores.

z-score percentile for normal distribution

Percentilez-ScorePercentilez-ScorePercentilez-Score1-2.32634-0.412670.442-2.05435-0.385680.4683-1.88136-0.358690.4964-1.75137-0.332700.5245-1.64538-0.305710.5536-1.55539-0.279720.5837-1.47640-0.253730.6138-1.40541-0.228740.6439-1.34142-0.202750.67410-1.28243-0.176760.70611-1.22744-0.151770.73912-1.17545-0.126780.77213-1.12646-0.1790.80614-1.0847-0.075800.84215-1.03648-0.05810.87816-0.99449-0.025820.91517-0.954500830.95418-0.915510.025840.99419-0.878520.05851.03620-0.842530.075861.0821-0.806540.1871.12622-0.772550.126881.17523-0.739560.151891.22724-0.706570.176901.28225-0.674580.202911.34126-0.643590.228921.40527-0.613600.253931.47628-0.583610.279941.55529-0.553620.305951.64530-0.524630.332961.75131-0.496640.358971.88132-0.468650.385982.05433-0.44660.412992.326