TUTORIAL 1: PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION/STA408

QUESTION 1
a) A random variable 𝑋 has a probability distribution given in the following table.
𝑋=𝑥 -1 0 1
𝑃(𝑋 = 𝑥) 𝑚 𝑛 𝑝

1 3
i) Find the values of 𝑚, 𝑛, and 𝑝, if 𝐸(𝑥) = and 𝐸(𝑥 2 ) = . (5 marks)
4 4
ii) Calculate the variance of 𝑥, 𝑉𝑎𝑟(𝑋). (3 marks)

b) Study shows that only 25% of all drivers stop when they approach a junction. Twenty drivers are
randomly selected.
i) Find the probability that at most 6 drivers will stop at the junction. (3 marks)
ii) Calculate the expectation and variance of the number of drivers who will stop at the junction.
(4 marks)

c) The number of people arriving for treatment at an emergency room, X, can be modelled by a Poisson
process with a rate of five per hour.
i) What is the probability that exactly four arrivals occur during a particular hour? (2 marks)
ii) Find the probability that five or more people arrive in a half an hour period. (2 marks)

d) Suppose that a certain test has a mean score of 476 and a standard deviation of 107. Assume that
the test scores are normally distributed.
i) What is the probability that a randomly selected score falls between 450 and 650? (5 marks)
ii) What is the probability of receiving a score greater than 750? (3 marks)
iii) What is the probability of receiving a score 500 or less? (5 marks)

QUESTION 2
a) The discrete random variable Z has the probability distribution given in the following table.
𝑍 0 1 2 3
𝑃(𝑍 = 𝑧) 2 1 1 𝛼
5 3 5

i) Find 𝛼. (2 marks)
ii) Find mean and variance of 𝑍. (7 marks)

b) If the probability that any one person requires medical attention in a year is 0.2. Four people are
randomly selected. What is the probability that;
i) all live through the year without medical attention? (3 marks)
ii) just one needs medical attention? (3 marks)
iii) at least two require medical attention? (3 marks)

c) Suppose that the bacteria in bottled waters are randomly distributed at the average rate of 5
bacteria per liter,
i) find the probability that a liter bottle contains 5 bacteria. (3 marks)
ii) find the probability that a 100ml glass of bottled water contains more than 1 bacterium.
(3 marks)

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 TUTORIAL 1: PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION/STA408

d) The time it takes for a lab assistant to prepare a broth culture is normally distributed with an average
time of one hour and a standard deviation of 5 minutes. Find the probability that a broth culture is
prepared in,
i) less than 45 minutes. (3 marks)
ii) more than 1.2 hour. (3 marks)
iii) between 56 minutes and 61 minutes. (3 marks)

QUESTION 3
a) Ten percent of computer chips produced in a certain manufacturing process turn out to be defective.
Find the probability that in a sample of:
i) 5 chips chosen at random, none is defective. (3 marks)
ii) 15 chips chosen at random, fewer than 5 will be defective. (3 marks)
iii) 100 chips chosen at random, between 4 and 8 will be defective. (5 marks)

b) The average number of telephone calls arriving at a small telephone exchange has a Poisson
distributed with a mean 2.0 per minute. Find the probability that:
i) exactly three calls arrive in 2 minutes. (3 marks)
ii) not more than four calls in 5 minutes. (3 marks)

c) Mr. Fadhili's reading class can read a mean of 175 words per minute with a standard deviation of 20
words per minute.
i) What is the probability the selected students can read greater than 250 words per minute?
(3 marks)
ii) If there are 50 students in the class, how many students we expect can read between 150 and
210 words per minute? (5 marks)
iii) The top 3% of the class is to receive a special award. What is the minimum number of words per
minute a student would have to read in order to get the award? (5 marks)

QUESTION 4
a) The discrete random variable 𝐽 has the probability function 𝑓(𝑗) given by:
1
𝑓(𝑗) = , 𝑓𝑜𝑟 0 < 𝑗 < 6
√𝑘
i) Find the values of the constant 𝑘. (2 marks)
ii) Show the probability distribution table of 𝐽. (2 marks)
iii) Calculate 𝐸(𝐽) and standard deviation of 𝐽. (5 marks)

b) A report stated that for about 80% of all property crimes occurred in a city, the criminals are never
found, and the case is never solved. Suppose that the police are investigating six property crimes
cases in the city.
i) What is the probability that at most two crimes will be solved? (3 marks)
ii) What is the percentage that all crimes will be solved? (3 marks)
iii) What is the expected number of crimes that will be solved? What is the standard deviation?
(7 marks)
c) The number of passengers arriving at a particular monorail station is Poisson distributed with a mean
of 0.9 passenger per minute.
i) Find the probability that more than one passenger arrive in two minutes. (3 marks)
ii) Find the percentage that only one passenger arrives in four minutes. (3 marks)

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d) The masses of packages from a particular machine are normally distributed with a mean of 200
grams and a standard deviation of 2 grams. Find the probability that a randomly selected package
from the machine weighs;
i) less than 197 grams.(2 marks)
ii) between 198.5 grams and 199.5 grams.(3 marks)

e) The length of mirror follows a normal distribution with mean u cm and standard deviation 6 cm. It is
known that 4.78% of the mirrors have length greater than 82 cm. find the value of mean.

QUESTION 5
a) The discrete random variable X has a probability function.

𝑘𝑥 2 , 𝑥 = 0, 1, 2, 3
𝑃(𝑋 = 𝑥) = { }; where 𝑘 is a positive constant.
0 , 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒

i) Find the value of 𝑘. (2 marks)

ii) Find the 𝑃(0.5 < 𝑥 < 3). (2 marks)
iii) Calculate the 𝐸(𝑋). (3 marks)
iv) Determine the 𝑉𝑎𝑟(𝑋). (3 marks)

b) Ali throws a fair coin 20 times and records the number of times it shows a tail.
i) Find the probability that Ali records exactly 10 tails. (2 marks)
ii) Find the probability that Ali records at most 12 tails. (2 marks)

c) A life insurance salesman sells on the average 4 life insurance policies per week.
i) Find the probability that, in a given 2 weeks he will sell not more than 3 policies. (2 marks)
ii) Find the probability that, in a given week he will sell 2 or more policies but less than 5 policies.
(3 marks)
iii) Assuming that, there are 5 working days per week, what is the probability that in a given day he
will sell one policy? (3 marks)

d) A research scientist reports that mice will live an average of 40 months when their diets are sharply
restricted and then enriched with vitamins and proteins. Assuming that, the lifetimes of such mice
are normally distributed with a standard deviation of 6.3 months.
i) Find the probability that a given mouse will live more than 32 months. (3 marks)
ii) Find the probability that a given mouse will live between 37 and 49 months. (4 marks)

QUESTION 6
a) A multiple choices test consists of 8 questions with 5 answer choices each. Each question has only
one correct answer. If a student answers all the 8 questions by guessing, find the probability that he
i) will answer all the question wrongly. (2 marks)
ii) will get more than 6 questions correct. (3 marks)

b) The number of breakdowns per day, Y, of the machine in a small factory has a Poisson distribution
with the mean 0.2. Find the probability that on a particular day there,
i) will be at least one breakdown. (1 mark)
ii) will be at most two breakdowns. (2 marks)
iii) in a 20 days period, there will be two breakdowns. (3 marks)

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c) A random variable X has a normal distribution with 𝜎 = 4. If 𝑃(𝑋 < 84.6) = 0.9918.
Find 𝑃(70 < 𝑥 < 80).

d) The masses of papayas sold at market are normally distributed with mean mass 600 gram and
standard deviation 20 gram.
i) If a papaya is selected at random, find the probability that it's mass lies between 580 grams and
605 grams. (3 marks)
ii) Find the mass k exceeded by 8% of the papayas. (4 marks)

QUESTION 7
a) Breakages of crockery occur in the kitchen of a hotel at an average rate of 2.5 per week.
i) Find the probability that in any given week there will be at least 5 breakages. (2 marks)
ii) Calculate the probability that at most 4 breakages. (2 marks)
iii) Determine the probability that in a month (4 weeks) there will be fewer than 10 breakages.
(3 marks)

b) At the Suria Bank, past data show that 8% of all credit card holder default at some time in their lives.
On one recent day, this bank issued 12 credit cards to new customers. Find the probability that of
these 12 customers, eventually
i) exactly 3 will default. (2 marks)
ii) more than 8 will not default. (3 marks)

c) The height of students in Sekolah Cahaya follows a normal distribution with a mean of 100cm and a
standard deviation of 12 cm.
i) Find the probability that the height of these students is more than 105 cm. (2 marks)
ii) Find the probability that the height of these students is between 97 cm and 102 cm. (2 marks)
iii) Find the minimum height by 75% of the students. (3 marks)

d) A bag contains a large number of counters of which 15% are coloured green. A random sample of 20
counters is selected and the number of green counters is recorded.
i) Find the probability of no more than 6 green counters are selected in this sample. (2 marks)
ii) Find the probability that at least 3 green counters are selected in this sample. (1 mark)
iii) Find the mean and standard deviation of the number of green counters in this sample. (3 marks)

e) Cars arrive at a motorway toll booth at an average rate of 150 per hour.
i) Find the probability that in any given minute, no car arrives. (3 marks)
ii) Find the probability that in any given minute, more than 5 cars arrive. (2 marks)
iii) Find the probability that fewer than 15 cars arrive in any given 4-minute period. (3 marks)

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QUESTION 8
a) A random variable X has the following probability distribution;

𝑘(5 − 𝑘); 𝑥 = 0, 1, 2
𝑓(𝑥) = { 𝑘 ; 𝑥 = 3, 4 , where 𝑘 is a constant.
0 ; 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒

i) Find the value of 𝑘. (4 marks)

ii) Find 𝑃(1 < 𝑋 ≤ 3) (2 marks)
iii) Find 𝐸(𝑋) and 𝑉𝑎𝑟(𝑋) (7 marks)

b) A study shows that 65% of students in SK Telok come from urban family.
i) Find the probability that more than 5 students come from urban family if seven students are
randomly selected. (2 marks)
ii) Find the probability that less than 3 students do not come from urban family if ten students are
randomly selected. (2 marks)
iii) Find the number of students that come from urban family if the expectation is 6.5. (2 marks)

c) On average, 3 robberies occur per day in a large city. Find the probability that
i) not more than 6 robberies will occur in this city in 3 days. (3 marks)
ii) Calculate the standard deviation for the number of robberies occurs in 4 days. (1 mark)

d) The height of students in Sekolah Cahaya follows a normal distribution with a mean of 100cm and a
standard deviation of 12 cm.
i) Find the probability that the height of these students is more than 105 cm. (2 marks)
ii) Find the probability that the height of these students is between 97 cm and 102 cm. (3 marks)
iii) Find the minimum height by 75% of the students. (3 marks)

QUESTION 9
a) Patients arrive at a checkout counter in a hospital according to a Poisson distribution at an average
of eight patients per hour. Find the probability that’
i) not more than three patients arrive in the next hour. (2 marks)
ii) exactly two patients arrive between 2.00 pm and 2.45 pm. (3 marks)

b) A group of friends take a picnic to a cricket match. As her contribution to the picnic, Hilda buys ten
sandwiches at a supermarket. She selects the sandwiches at random from those on display. The
probability that a sandwich is suitable for vegetarians is 35% for each sandwich. Find the probability
that,
i) the suitable number for a vegetarian is 2 or fewer. (2 marks)
ii) the suitable number for a vegetarian is in between 2 and 5. (2 marks)

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c) The mean time children spend every day playing a game during school holiday is 120minutes with
standard deviation of 12 minutes. Assume that the time is normally distributed.
i) If a child is selected at random, what is the probability that the time spent playing a game at
least 110 minutes? (3 marks)
ii) If 20% of the children spent time for playing game exceeds m minutes, find the value of 𝑚.
(3 marks)

QUESTION 10
a) A company estimates that there is a 50% chance of an order arriving on time from a supplier.
Suppose 10 orders are placed this week.
i) What is the probability that at least 4 orders arrive on time? (3 marks)
ii) What is the probability that none of the orders arrive on time? (2 marks)
iii) How many orders would you expect to arrive on time? (2 marks)

b) The reaction time to a certain psychological experiment is normally distributed with a mean of 20
seconds and a variance of 16 seconds.
i) What is the probability a of subject taking between 15 and 30 seconds to react? (4 marks)
ii) If only 10% of subjects react faster than X seconds, determine the value of X? (4 marks)

QUESTION 11
a) In a food packaging plant, the number of machine breakdowns in a given week follows a Poisson
distribution with variance 2. Find the probability of
i) at most one machine breakdown in a given week. (3 marks)
ii) more than four machine breakdowns in a month. (2 marks)

b) It is reported that 5% of electronic appliances produced by an electronic factory are defective. A

quality engineer randomly selects a sample of 20 electronic appliances from the production line.
i) Find the probability that exactly 2 appliances are defective. (2 marks)
ii) Find the probability that less than 6 are defective. (2 marks)
iii) What is the expected number of defective appliances from the sample selected? (1 mark)

c) A batch of resistors has a mean resistance of 38 ohms and a standard deviation of 3.2ohms. Assume
the resistance follows a normal distribution.
i) Find the probability that a randomly selected resistor has a resistance that exceeds 42 ohms.
(3 marks)
ii) If 10% of the resistors have resistance of more than k ohms, find the value of k. (4 marks)

END OF QUESTIONS

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