PGP Boot Camp – Statistics

(Examples & Problems)

Examples will be solved in class during boot camp sessions and problems will be tried by
students themselves.

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 Probability

Examples:
1. Toss a coin three times, what is the probability of at least two heads?

2. The manager of a factory claims that among his 400 employees:

 312 got a pay rise last year
 248 got increased pension benefits last year
 173 got both pension benefits and pay rise last year
 13 got neither
Using last year’s figures as your guide to this year’s prospects, calculate the probability of:

a) Getting a pay rise

b) Not getting a pay rise
c) Getting both a pay rise and pension benefits

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 3. Of all flashlights in a large shipment, 15% have a defective bulb, 10% have a defective
battery, and 5% have both defects. If you purchase a flashlight from the shipment what
are the probabilities of the following:
a) A defective light bulb or a defective battery,
b) A good bulb or a good battery,
c) A good bulb and a good battery.

Problems:
1. A box is filled with candies in different colors. We have 40 white candies, 24 green ones,
12 red ones, 24 yellow ones and 20 blue ones. If we have selected one candy from the
box without peeking into it, find the probability of getting a green or red candy

2. Let us suppose we are flipping three fair coins together. Find the sample space and
favorable outcomes for at least two heads.

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 3. When two dice are rolled, find the probability that the sum of the numbers on the two
dice is 8 and the number on the first die is greater than the number on the second die.

4. Two students appeared in an examination. The probability that the first will qualify the
examination is 0.05 and that the second will qualify the examination is 0.10. The
probability that both will qualify the examination is 0.02.

5. Find the probability that both will not qualify the examination.

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 6. Find the probability that at least one of them will not qualify the examination and

7. Find the probability that only one of them will qualify the examination.

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 Random Variables

Examples:
1. The number of patients seen in the ER in any given hour is a random variable
represented by x. The probability distribution for x is:

x 10 11 12 13 14

P(x) .4 .2 .2 .1 .1

Find the probability that in a given hour:

a) Exactly 14 patients arrive
b) At least 12 patients arrive
c) At most 11 patients arrive

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Problems:
1. Which of the following random variables is discrete?

a) the length of time a battery lasts

b) the weight of an adult
c) the percentage of children in a population who have been vaccinated against
measles
d) the number of books purchased by a student in a year
e) the distance between a pair of cities

2. Which of the following random variables isn’t discrete?

a) the number of children in a family

b) the annual rainfall in a city
c) the attendance at a football game
d) the number of patients treated at an emergency room in a day
e) the number of classes taken in one semester by a student

3. Which of the following random variables is discrete?

a) the proportion of a population that voted in the last election

b) the height of a college student
c) the number of cars registered in a state
d) the weight of flour in a sack advertised as containing ten pounds
e) the length of a phone call

4. Which of the following random variables is continuous?

a. the number of heads resulting from flipping a coin 30 times

b. the number of deaths from plane crashes in a year
c. the proportion of the American population that believes in ghosts

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 d. the number of films produced in Canada in a year
e. the number of people arrested for auto theft in a year

5. Which of the following random variables is continuous?

a. the number of seniors in a college

b. the number of gold medals won at the 2012 Summer Olympics by athletes
from Germany
c. the number of schools in a city
d. the number of registered physicians in the United States
e. the amount of gasoline used in the Unites States in 2012

6. Which of the following random variables isn’t continuous?

a. the proportion of adults on probation in a state

b. the population growth rate for a city

c. the amount of money spent by a household for food over a year
d. the number of bird species observed in an area
e. the length of time it takes to walk ten miles

(7-9).The following table represents the probability distribution for X, the employment status of adults in
a city.

X P(X)
Employed Full- 0.65
Time
Employed Part- 0.10
Time
Unemployed 0.07
Retired 0.18

7. If you select one adult at random from this community, what is the probability that the
individual is employed part-time?

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 8. If you select one adult at random from this community, what is the probability that the
individual isn’t retired?

9. If you select one adult at random from this community, what is the probability that the
individual is working either part-time or full-time?

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 Expected Value and Variance of Discrete Random Variable

Examples:
1. Below is the number of brands launched by an FMCG company in a given year.
Find the mean number of brand launched in a given year.

Number
of Brands
Launched P(X=xi)
(xi)
0.06
6
0.04
13
0.07
12
0.08
18
0.09
14
0.02
16
0.01
10
0.08
9
0.03
17
0.03
11
0.05
19
0.09
20
0.2
15

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 0.01
21
0.14
8

2. Decide on which of the project would you like to go ahead with. Explain with
reasons:

Project A Project B

X P(X=x) X P(X=x)

Loss - $26,000 0.3 - $71,000 0.2

Break Even $0 0.5 $0 0.65

Profit $ 68,000.00 0.2 $ 143,000 0.15

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 3. Linda is a sales associate at a large auto dealership. At her commission rate of 25%
of gross profit on each vehicle she sells, Linda expects to earn $350 for each car sold
and $400 for each truck or SUV sold. Linda motivates herself by using probability
estimates of her sales. For a sunny Saturday in April, she estimates her car sales as
follows:

What is Linda’s expected income?

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Problems:
(1 – 4).In the following table, X represents the number of automobiles owned by families in a
neighborhood.

X P(X)
0 0.25
1 0.60
2
3 0.05

1. What is the missing value in this table (representing- the number of automobiles
owned by two families in a neighborhood)?

2. What is the mean number of automobiles owned?

3. If every family currently not owning a car bought one car, what would be the mean
number of automobiles owned?

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 4. If all the families currently owning three cars bought a fourth car, what would be the
mean number of automobiles owned?

(5 – 8) In the following table, X represents the number of books required for classes at a university.

X P(X)
0 0.30
1 0.25
2 0.25
3 0.10
4 0.10

5. What is the mean number of books required?

6. What is the variance of the number of books required? Round your answer to two
decimal places.

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 7. What is the standard deviation of the number of books required? Round your answer
to two decimal places.

8. How would the standard deviation and variance- change if only 20% of the students
required two books, but now 5% of the students- require five books (with all other
categories unchanged)?

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 Normal Distribution

Examples:
1. I.Q.'s are normally distributed with mean µ = 100 and Std dev σ = 15.
a) What is the probability that a randomly selected person has an I.Q. over 130?
b) What proportion of the people have I.Q.'s between 76 and 124? .

2. The lifetimes of a brand of light bulb have a normal distribution with mean µ = 750 and
Std dev σ = 15.
a) What proportion of the bulbs last longer than 790 hours?
b) All light bulbs in a factory will be replaced after 10% burn out. How many hours
is this after the bulbs are installed?

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 3. Suppose the annual return on investment in stock A is normally distributed with mean
10% and standard deviation 30%. Suppose we invest $60 in this stock for one year.
a) What are the chances that we will lose money on this investment?
b) What are the chances that we will make at least $12 on our investment?

4. Suppose the life of Goodyear automobile tire is normally distributed with mean 36,500
miles, and standard deviation 5,000 miles.
a) If warranty covers 40,000 miles, what fraction of tires will fail during that period?
b) If they would like 90% of the tires to last beyond the warranty mileage, what
mileage warranty should they provide?
c) If they want to keep the warranty at 40,000 miles and limit warranty claims to
10%, what should they do?

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 5. Suppose the class time required for a typical student to understand the material on
decision trees is normally distributed with a mean of 5 hours and a standard deviation
of 2 hours. How much time should the instructor spend on this topic if he wants to make
sure that 80% of the class will get it in that time?

Problems:
1. Which of the following normal distributions will have the greatest spread when
graphed?

a. µ = 5, σ = 1.5
b. µ = 10, σ = 1.0
c. µ = 5, σ = 1.75
d. µ = 5, σ = 1.2
e. µ = 10, σ = 1.6

2. For a normal distribution with µ = 5 and σ = 1.2, 34% of the values lie between 5 and
what number? (Assume that the number is above the mean.)

3. For a normal distribution with = 5 and = 1.2, about 2.5% of the values lie above what
value? (Assume that the number is above the mean.)

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 4. For a normal distribution with = 5 and = 1.2, about 16% of the values lie below what
value?

5. A normal distribution with = 8 has 99.7% of its values between 3.5 and 12.5. What is the
standard deviation for this distribution?

6. What are the mean and standard deviation of the Z-distribution?

(7-11). A random variable X has a normal distribution, with a mean of 17 and a standard deviation of
3.5.

7. What is the z-score for a value of 21.2?

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 8. What is the z-score for a value of 13.5?

9. What is the z-score for a value of 25.75?

10.What value of X corresponds to a z-score of –0.4?

11.What value of X corresponds to a z-score of 2.2?

(12-17). All the scores on a national exam have a normal distribution and a range of 0 to 100,
but when split up, Form A of the exam has µ = 70 and σ = 10, while Form B has µ = 74 and
σ = 8.

12. What are the scores on each exam corresponding to a z-score of 1.5?

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 13. What are the scores on each exam corresponding to a z-score of –2.0?

14. In terms of standard deviations above or below the mean, what score on Form
B corresponds to a score of 80 on Form A?

15. In terms of standard deviations above or below the mean, what score on Form
B corresponds to a score of 85 on Form A?

16. In terms of standard deviations above or below the mean, what score on Form
A corresponds to a score of 78 on Form B?

17. In terms of standard deviations above or below the mean, what score on Form A
corresponds to a score of 68 on Form B?

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 18. Write the probability notation for the area shaded in this Z-distribution (where µ= 0 and
σ = 1).

19. Write the probability notation for the area shaded in this Z-distribution (where µ= 0 and
σ = 1)

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(20-24). The diameter of a machine part produced by a factory is normally distributed, with a mean of 10
centimeters and a standard deviation of 2 centimeters.

20.What is the z-score for a part with a diameter of 13 centimeters?

21. What is the probability of a part having a diameter of at least 13 centimeters?

22. What is the probability of a part having a diameter no greater than 13

centimeters?

23. What is the probability of a part having a diameter between 10 and 13

centimeters?

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 24. What is the probability of a part having a diameter between 7 and 10
centimeters?

(25-32). In a population of adults ages 18 to 65, BMI (body mass index) is normally distributed with a
mean of 27 and a standard deviation of 5.

25.What is the BMI score for which half of the population has a lower value?

26.What BMI marks the bottom 25% of the distribution for this population?

27.What BMI marks the bottom 5% of the distribution for this population?

28.What BMI marks the bottom 10% of the distribution for this population?

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 29.What BMI value marks the upper 10% of the distribution for this population?

30.What BMI value marks the upper 5% of the distribution for this population?

31.What BMI value marks the upper 30% of the distribution for this population?

32.What two BMI values mark the 1st and 3rd quartiles of the distribution?

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 Relationship between Two Variables (Scatter Plot, Covariance &
Correlation)

Problems
(1-6).This scatter plot represents the high-school and freshman college GPAs of 24 students.

1. How would you describe the linear relationship between high-school GPA and
college GPA?

a. strong
b. weak
c. positive
d. negative
e. Choices (A) and (C)

2. Looking at the following high-school GPAs for five students, which one would you
predict to have the highest college GPA?

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 a. 2.5
b. 2.8
c. 3.1
d. 3.4
e. 4.0

3. How do you know this scatter plot displays a positive linear relationship between the
two variables?

4. How do you know this scatter plot displays a relatively strong linear relationship
between the two variables?

5. If these two quantitative variables had a correlation of 1, how would the scatter plot be
different?

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 6. If these two quantitative variables had a correlation of –1, what would the scatter plot
look like?

a. The points would all lie on a straight line.

b. All the points would have to be between –1 and 0.
c. All the points would slope downward from left to right.
d. Choices (A) and (C)
e. Choices (A), (B), and (C

Figure out what the correlations in the following problems indicate.

7. Which of the following correlations indicates a strong, negative linear relationship

between two quantitative variables?

a. –0.2
b. –0.8
c. 0
d. 0.4
e. 0.8

8. Which of the following correlations indi-cates a weak, positive linear relationship

between two quantitative variables?

a. –0.2
b. –0.6
c. 0.2
d. 0.75
e. 0.9

9. Which of the following correlations indicates a very strong, positive linear

relationship between two quantitative variables?

a. –0.7
b. –0.1
c. 0.2
d. 0.4
e. 0.9

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 10. Which of the following correlations indi-cates a weak, negative linear
relationship between two quantitative variables?

a. –0.2
b. –0.8
c. –1
d. 0.4
e. 0.8

Use this information to answer the following problems: The following statistics describe two variables, X
and Y:

𝑥̅ = 8 𝑦̅ = 8.53

Sx = 4.47; Sy = 5.36 (Where S represents standard deviation)

11.What is the correlation of X and Y in this case?

12. If the sample size is changed to 20, with all the other given values the same, how will the
correlation change?

13. If Sy changed to 4.82, with all the other given values the same, how will the
correlation of X and Y change?

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 14. Suppose that you calculate the correlation between the heights of fathers and
sons, measured in inches, and then you convert the data to centimeters; how
does the cor-relation change?

15. Which of the following values isn’t possible for a correlation?

a. –2.64
b. 0.99
c. 1.5
d. Choices (A) and (C)
e. Choices (A), (B), and (C)

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 16. If you compute the correlation between the heights and weights of a group of
students and then compute the correlation between their weights and heights,
how will the two correlations compare?

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