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EvilMrGuiDISCRETE MATHEMATICS – GROUPWORK 3
COUNTING (WEEK 2) & PROBABILITY
Part 1: Monday
(1) Suppose you can create a license plate with 5 characters, 3 letters followed by 2 numbers.
If you randomly create a license plate, what is the probability that it starts with the letter
“M”?
(2) Suppose you are randomly selecting a number from the set of odd numbers between 0 and
100. What is the probability that the digits of the selected number add to 7?
(3) Suppose you randomly select a positive, three digit number. What is the probability that
the sum of the digits is even?
(4) Suppose you randomly generate a positive, 55 digit number. What is the probability that
none of the digits are “3”?
Part 2: Wednesday
(1) Suppose your neighborhood life insurance company sells a $62, 000 life insurance policy for
$150 per year. That is, during any given year, if the person lives, the company makes $150.
If the person dies, the company loses $62, 000.
(a) If each person has a 0.0001 probability of dying each year, what is the expected yearly
payout of a single policy?
(b) If the company sells 723 policies, what is their expected profit after one year (use the
probability above)?
(c) What would the death probability have to be for the expected profit to be $0?
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2 DISCRETE MATHEMATICS – GROUPWORK 3 COUNTING (WEEK 2) & PROBABILITY
(2) Suppose you have to pay $3 to roll a 6-sided die. If the die rolls an odd number, you receive
$3. If the die rolls a number less than 3, you have pay an additional $1. If the die rolls a
6, you receive $5. What is your expected profit after rolling the die once?
(3) How many 3 digit odd numbers can be made such that no digit is repeated? (NOTE: 031
is not a 3-digit number.)
(4) Suppose you are ordering a pizza with 4 distinct toppings.
(a) If the pizza place has 11 different toppings to choose from, how many choices do you
have?
(b) Suppose you are sharing your pizza with a friend who really loves red onions. If the
pizza place has 7 different toppings to choose from, how many choices do you have if
you want to keep your friend happy?
Part 3: Friday
(1) Suppose you flip a fair coin 6 times. What is the probability that the coin will never land
on heads?
(2) Suppose a group of 36 people are being broken into 9 subgroups of 4.
(a) How many ways can this occur?
(b) Suppose there are 9 people who love to talk. How many ways can the groups be
arranged such that each group has at least one of those people?
(3) In 5-card poker, a player draws five cards and is looking for certain combinations. Different
“hands” are more valuable than others based upon their rarity. You will examine two such
hands with a standard 52-card deck.
(a) A “flush” is a hand that contains five cards all of the same suit. (The rank (or value)
of the cards is unimportant). How many different possible flushes are there?
(b) A “straight” is a hand that contains five cards of sequential rank. (The suit of the
cards is unimportant). How many different possible straights are there?
(NOTE: do not exclude from your calculations hands that have greater value. For example,
a Royal Flush is also considered a flush, a straight, and even a straight flush.)
