Example Sheet for chapters 1 and 2

1. A single die is tossed and the number of spots appearing on the top face of the
die is noted. Identify the false statement:
A. There are six sample points associated with the sample space
B. The probability that the number of spots appearing is greater than three is 2/3.
C. The sample space is S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
D. The probability of an even number appearing is ?
E. None of the above

2. The probability of A or B is .8. The probability of B is .3 What is the probability of A if

events A and B are mutually exclusive?
A .11 B -.5 C0 C .5 None of the above

3. Which of the following best expresses the addition rule of probabilities?

A. P(A B) = P(A) + P(B)
B. P(A B) = P(A) + P(B) + P(A B)
C. P(A B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A B)
D. None of the above

4. A candy bowl contains 8 red M&Ms, 5 blue and 3 yellow. If 2 M&Ms are selected
randomly, what is the probability that one will be blue and one will be yellow?
A. 5 percent B. 20 percent C. 33.3 percent D. 12.5 percent

5. The probability that house sales will increase in the next 6 months is estimated to be
0.25. The probability that the interest rates on housing loans will go up is estimated to be 0.7.
The probability that house sales and interest rates will go up during the next 6 months is
estimated to be 0.20.

a. The probability that house sales or interest rates increase during the next 6 months is
A 0.75 B 0.85 C 0,705 D 0.9

b. The probability that house sales will go up given that the interest rates will increase during
the next 6 months is
A 0.11 B 0.195 C 0.285 D 0.4

c. The probability of an increase in house sales and not an increase in interest rates is
A 0.2 B 0.05 C 0.25 D 0.5

6. . In the General Addition Rule, which finds the probability of either event A or event
B occurring, P(A) and P(B) are summed, but why is P(A and B) subtracted?
A. This is just part of the theory.
B. P(A and B) has already been counted in P(A) and P(B).
C. You do not have to subtract P(A and B) if A and B are statistically independent.
D. This rule determines the probability of event A OR B occurring, not A AND B, so this factor is
subtracted.
7. Consider the following chart of student enrollment at a particular college. A student is
selected at random from this college.

Nursing Engineering
students Students

Undergraduates 130 70

Graduates 30 20
Let E represent the event an engineering student is selected, N = nursing student, U=
undergraduate and G = graduate student. A single student is selected at random from this set.
Identify the statement below that is false:
A. P (E|U)=7/9 B. P (E|G)=0.4 C. P (N) = 16/25= 0.64 D. P (G|N) =
3/16

8. . Two cards are drawn without replacement (no return) from an ordinary deck of 52 cards
(no jokers). Find the probability that both cards are black:
A. 650/2704 B. 1/4 C. 25/102 D. None of the above

9. A Ph.D. graduate has applied for a job with two universities: X and Y. The graduate feels
that he has a 60% chance of receiving an offer from university X and a 50% chance of
receiving an offer from university Y. If he receives an offer from university Y, he believes that
he has an 80% chance of receiving an offer from university X. What is the probability that both
universities will make him an offer?
A 0.48 B 0.40 C 0.30 D 0.04

10. A publisher when deciding whether to offer contracts on two books, in economics and
marketing respectively, estimates that the economics book has a probability of 0.7 of earning a
profit while the marketing book has a probability of 0.5 of earning a profit. Further, she
considers that the probability of both books failing to make a profit is 0.2.
a. Find the probability that at least one book will make a profit.
b. Find the probability that at least one book will fail to make a profit.
c. Find the probability that both books will make a profit

In a furniture manufacturing plant, a customer survey indicates that blemishes in the finish are a
major concern. The table shown below displays a quality manager’s probability assessment of the
number of defects in the finish of new furniture.

Number of Defects 0 1 2 3 4 5
Probability 0.34 0.25 0.19 0.11 0.07 0.04

1. Let event A be that there are more than three defects and let event B be that there are four
or fewer defects. Which of the following statements is true?

A) P( A B ) = 0.18.
B) P( A B ) = 0.07.
C) Events A and B are collectively exhaustive.
D) Events A and B are mutually exclusive.

2. Let event A be that there are more than two defects and let event B be that there are four or
fewer defects. Which of the following statements is true?

A) P( A B ) = 0.18.
B) P( A B ) = 0.07.
C) P( A ) = 0.58.
D) P( B ) = 0.89.
3. Let A be the event that there is at least one defect and let event B be that there is at most
three defects. Which of the following statements is true?

A) P( A B ) = 0.55.
B) P( A B ) = 0.96.
C) P( A ) = 0.34.
D) P( B ) = 0.89.

4. A gumball machine has three different colored gumballs: red, blue and yellow. If you buy
3 gumballs, how many different combinations of colors could you buy?

A) 9
B) 15
C) 10
D) 6

5. Two events A and B defined on a sample space S are said to be mutually exclusive if

A) A B = .
B) A B = .
C) A B=S.
D) A B=S.
THE NEXT TWO QUESTIONS ARE BASED ON THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:
Ted’s Surfboard Shop makes surfboards by hand. The number of surfboards that Ted makes in a
week depends on the wave conditions. Ted has estimated the following probabilities for surfboard
production for the next week.

Number of 5 6 7 8 9 10
Surfboards
Probability 0.13 0.22 0.31 0.17 0.13 0.04

6. Let event A be that Ted produces more than seven surfboards and let event B be that he
produces exactly six surfboards. Which of the following statements is true?

A) P( A B )=0.31
B) Events A and B are collectively exhaustive.
C) P( A B )=0.44
D) Events A and B are mutually exclusive

7. Let event A be that Ted produces more than six surfboards, and let event B be that he
produces less than eight surfboards. Which of the following statements is true?

A) P( A B ) = 0.75
B) Events A and B are collectively exhaustive.
C) P( A ) = 0.53
D) Events A and B are mutually exclusive.

1. The peak shopping time at Home Depot is between 8-11:00 AM on Saturday mornings.
Management at Home Depot randomly selected 50 customers last Saturday morning and decided
to observe their shopping habits. They recorded the number of items that each of the customers
purchased as well as the total time the customers spent in the store. Identify the type of variables
recorded by Home Depot.

A. Number of Items - Continuous; Total Time - Discrete

B. Number of Items - Continuous; Total Time - Continuous
C. Number of Items - Discrete; Total Time - Discrete
D. Number of Items - Discrete; Total Time - Continuous

2. Fill in the empty places in the table below given that E(X)=4.5

X 2 5 10
P(X) .2 .4 .3

3. For a binomial distribution with five trials and 20% probability of success per trial, what
number of successes in the five trials has the highest probability?

A. 3 B. 2 C. 4 D. 1

4. Past experience indicates that on average only one in five people entering a jewellery shop in
a big city makes a purchase. Of the next three people entering the shop, what is the probability
that exactly two people make a purchase?

5. What value is the sum of the probabilities in a probability binomial distribution?

A. It varies with the number of values in the distribution B. It depends on the variable
C. Nearly 1 D. 1

6 Which of the following is not a true statement about the binomial probability
distribution?
A. Each outcome is independent of each other.
B. Each outcome can be classified as either success or failure.
C. The probability of success must be constant from trial to trial
D. The random variable of interest is continuous.
7. A basketball player makes 80 percent of his free throws during the season. What is the
probability that he will make exactly 6 of his next 8 free throws?
A. 0.1468 B. 0.3355 C. 0.1678 D. 0.2936

4. The sum of the product of each value of a discrete random variable X times its
probability is referred to as its

A. Expected value B. variance C. mean D. both A

and C

5. A car owner determines that annual repair costs (R) can be estimated based on the
number of miles driven in one year (M) through the expression R = 800 + 0.05M. If the
average number of miles driven is 12000 with a standard deviation of 2500 miles, what is
the standard deviation of the expected annual repair costs?

A. 1400 B. 925 C. 800 D. 125

5. If n = 10 and p= 0.8, then the mean and variance of the binomial distribution are:
A. 8 and 1.6 B. 0.8 and 1.6 C. 0.08 and 1.26 D. 1.6 and 0.8

6. All of the following are characteristics of the normal curve except:

A. Fifty percent of the data lies above the mean and fifty percent of the data lies below the mean.
B. The graph of the normal distribution eventually crosses the x-axis for extremely large values
of x.
C. The normal curve is symmetric about its mean
D. Approximately 68% of the data falls within one standard deviation of the mean.
7. The probability that a normally distributed variable x will assume a specific value is:
A. 1 B. 0.5 C. Any value from 0 to 1 D. 0

8. IQ scores are normally distributed with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16. If x is the
random variable representing an IQ score, the probability that x is between 84 and 116, P (84 < x <
116) is:
A 0.34 B 0.68 C 0.95 D 0.32

9. The score for the final exam in a statistics class has normal distribution with mean 85. 20 percent
of the students received a grade greater than 90. What is the probability that a randomly selected exam
had a score between 85 and 90?
A. 80 percent B. 30 percent C. 50 percent
D. There is not sufficient information to answer this question.

10. The speed of cars passing through a check point follows a normal distribution with a mean
of 45 miles per hour and a standard deviation of 6 miles per hour. What is the probability that
the next car passing will be exceeding 50 miles per hour?
A. close to 1.0 B. 0.6 C. 0.7967 D. 0.2033 E. None of the above

11. The probability of obtaining a value greater than 110 in a normal distribution in which
the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 10 is ______________ the probability of
obtaining a value greater than 650 in a normal distribution with a mean of 500 and a
standard deviation of 100.
A. less than B. equal to C. greater than D. It is unknown without
more information

12. All of the following random variables can be classified as discrete except:

A. The number of bacteria in a cubic centimeter of water from a certain river

b. The amount of water flowing through a dam
C. The number of registered voters who vote in a national election.
D. The number of words typed by a secretary per minute

13. A bag contains three red and two black checkers. Two checkers are drawn randomly in
succession, without replacement from this bag and the number of red checkers, x, is noted. The
probability distribution can be constructed with x in the first column and P (x) in the second
column. Find the mean of this probability distribution
A. 1 red checker B. 2 red checkers C. Cannot be determined D. 1.2
red checkers

14. For a binomial distribution with five trials and 20% probability of success per trial, what
number of successes in the five trials has the highest probability?
A. 4 B. 1 C. 3 D. 2

14. IQ scores are normally distributed with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16. If x
is the random variable representing an IQ score, the probability that x is between 84 and 116, P
(84 < x < 116) is:

A. 0.32 B. 0.34 C. 0.95 D. 0.68

15. For the normal distribution, what percent of the observations are within plus or minus 1.96
standard deviations?

A. 68% B. 50% C. 95% D. 99.7%

16. Identify the statement below that is false:

A. For the binomial distribution with n = 25 and p = .5, the normal approximation will provide
a reasonable approximation to the most binomial events from x = 0 to x = 25.
B. In the binomial experiment, a coin is tossed 500 times. To calculate the probability that the
number of heads is 200 or more, calculate the probability that z is greater than (200 -
250)/11.18.