STU12501-001

Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

School of Computer Science & Statistics

B.A. (Mod.) Mathematics Semester 1, 2021

B.A. (Mod., Joint Honors) Mathematics
Annual Examination

STU12501: Introduction to Statistics I

Friday, 10 December 2021 “Take at Home” 14:00-19:00

Fergal Shevlin, Ph.D.

Instructions to Candidates:

• Answer five questions out of eight. All questions carry equal marks.

• Use three hours as a target for how long you should take in total.

• If you have been granted additional time for written examinations, adjust the
suggested target accordingly.

• Provide original and detailed explanations in support of your answers.

• Maximum answer length should be four pages comprising at most 1,000 words.

• Email me at [email protected] with any specific queries and I will reply if I can.

• Take pictures of (or scan) each page and send them to me as a single
attachment to a single email. Avoid very high resolutions to keep attachment
size within email limits.

• Note that collaboration is not permitted. You must submit a picture of the
enclosed declaration signed by you.

Materials permitted for this examination:

• This is an “open book” exam. Feel free to refer to any appropriate sources of
information you have available, e.g. lecture notes, textbooks, or internet.

• Non-programmable calculators—indicate make and model.

Page 1 of 3
 STU12501-1

Question 1. Two players take turns removing a ball from a jar that initially contains m white
and n black balls. The first player to remove a white ball wins. Develop a
recursive formula that facilitates convenient computation of the probability that
the starting player wins.
[20 marks]

Question 2. Two jars contain an equal number of balls initially. A ball is picked from each jar
simultaneously and at random and moved to the other jar. What is the
probability that after four such exchanges, all the balls will be in the jars where
they started?
[20 marks]

Question 3. Consider a coin with probability p for an outcome of heads. Let qn be the
probability that after n independent tosses, there have been an even number of
heads. Derive a recursion that relates qn to qn−1 and solve it to get the formula,

qn = (1 + (1 − 2p)n )/2.

[20 marks]

Question 4. There are 100 cars of various colours in a car park and k of them are green. From
m cars selected at random, what is the probability that n of them are green?
[20 marks]

Question 5. Imagine you have five different keys but you don’t know which one fits a
particular lock so you decide to try them at random.

(i) Find the probability mass function of the number of trials under the following
assumptions: (a) after an unsuccessful trial you mark the key and don’t try it
again; (b) at each trial you are equally likely to choose any key.
[10 marks]

(ii) As described in part (i) but for the situation where you have two copies of
each key.
[10 marks]

© Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 2021.

Page 2 of 3
 STU12501-1

Question 6. A pair of coins, with probabilities p and q of heads, are tossed simultaneously
until the outcome is head and tail. Assume all tosses are independent.

(i) Find the probability mass function, the expected value, and the variance of
the number of tosses.
[10 marks]

(ii) For the coin with probability p of heads, what is the probability that the last
outcome is a head?
[10 marks]

Question 7. Consider a teacher who marks your homework with grades from the set
{A, B, C , D, E , F } with equal probability, irrespective of quality. How many
homeworks can you expect to submit before you receive each possible grade at
least once?
[20 marks]

Question 8. Let X and Y be normal random variables with means 0 and 1, respectively; and
with variances 1 and 4, respectively.

(i) Find probabilities P(X ≤ 1.5) and P(X ≤ −1).

[6 marks]

(ii) Find the probability density function of (Y − 1)/2.

[7 marks]

(iii) Find probability P(−1 ≤ Y ≤ 1).

[7 marks]

© Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 2021.

Page 3 of 3