Stats 200 Winter 2020

Homework 3
Due Friday January 31 at 5PM on Gradescope

Instructions
Please upload a PDF of your assignment to Gradescope.

• Each problem must begin on a new page; assignments which do not so will lose 10 points.
• Click to indicate which pages correspond to which problem when you upload or lose 10 points.
• Late penalties: For each day late (up to 3 days), your homework will be penalized 10%.
Homework more than 3 days late will get 0. That is, homeworks must be received by the
Monday following the due date at 5pm to receive credit (which allows us to post solutions
promptly). Up to three days’ worth of late penalties will be forgiven for sickness or other
events (such as interviews or university athletics) at the end of the quarter.
• You are encouraged (but not required) to typeset your homework (for example, using LaTeX).

Problems
In general, we offer partial credit, so show your work and explain your reasoning.

1. (Rice Ch 5, problem 1, 10 points). Let X1 , X2 , . . . be a sequence

Pn
of independent random
2
2 i=1 σi
variables with E(Xi ) = µ and V ar(Xi ) = σi . Show that if n2
→ 0, then X̄ → µ in
probability.
2. (Rice Ch 5, problem 12, 10 points) The central limit theorem can be used to analyze round-off
error. Suppose that the round-off error is represented as a uniform random variable on [− 12 , 12 ].
If 100 numbers are added, approximate the probability that the round-off error exceeds (a) 1
and (b) 5.
3. (10 points) In the same setting of the previous problem, approximate the probability that the
round-off error exceed (a) 1 and (b) 5, by Monte Carlo simulation and compare it to problem
2.
4. (Rice Ch 5, problem 15, 10 points) Suppose that you bet $5 on each of a sequence of 50
independent fair games. Use the central limit theorem to approximate the probability that
you will lose more than $75.
5. (Rice Ch 5, problem 21, 30 points) This problem introduces a variation on the Monte Carlo
integration technique discussed in Rice 5.2. Suppose that we wish to evaluate
Z b
I(f ) = f (x)dx (1)
a
Let g be a density function on [a, b]. Generate X1 , . . . , Xn from g and estimate I by
n
ˆ )= 1
X f (Xi )
I(f (2)
n g(Xi )
i=1

1
 ˆ )) = I(f )
(a) Show that E(I(f
ˆ )). Give an example for which it is finite and an example
(b) Find an expression for V ar(I(f
for which it is infinite. Note that if it is finite, the law of large numbers implies that
ˆ ) → I(f ) as n → ∞.
I(f
(c) Show that if a = 0, b = 1 and g is uniform, this is the same Monte Carlo estimate as
that of Example A of Section 5.2. Can this estimate be improved by choosing g to be
other than uniform? (Hint: Compare variances.).