Can this question be answered with only a mean and standard deviation? If so, how?

Question

The local police force gives all applicants an entrance exam and accepts only those applicants who score in the top 1.5% on the test. Assuming the scores are normally distributed, the mean score is 85 points, the standard deviation is 12 points, what is the minimum score to be accepted

Answer 1

It can be answered with just the mean and the standard deviation, provided you have an understanding of z scores as the measure of position. Z gives the exact position of any raw score in relation to its mean. So you would want to approach this by finding the corresponding z score to the area or percent under the curve to the upper tail. Once you know the z score you can calculate the raw score.