Additional Practice Problems

1. In a factory, there are three machines 1, 2, 3, producing 50%, 30%, 20% respectively of the total
output. Out of the items produced by machine 2, four percent are defectives. The corresponding
figure for machine 3 is 6%. The following is known:
“If an item is drawn at random from the production line and found to be defective then the
conditional probability for this item to be produced by machine 1 is 0.50”.
What is the proportion of defective items among those produced by machine 1?

2. Out of the valves produced by factory A, 10% are defectives and the corresponding figure for factory
B is 20%. A bag contains 4 valves of factory A and 5 valves of factory B. If two valves are drawn at
random from the bag, find the probability that at least one valve is defective.

3. The waiting time (in minutes) at a bus stop follows the uniform distribution over the range [0,10].
What is the probability that the total waiting time, over 30 occasions, exceeds 150 minutes?

4. The probability distribution of the number of projects executed by a construction company per year
is as follows:

Value 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Probability k2 k 7k2 +k 2k 2k2 3k 2k

Here k is a suitable constant. Any year is "unusual" if the number of projects executed, X, is too large
or too small in the sense that |X-7| > 2.
(a) Find the probability for any particular year to be "unusual".
(b) Also find the probability that out of four randomly chosen years, no more than one is "unusual".
(c) Find E(X).

5. The distribution of life (X), in hours, of a certain kind of electrical component has the probability
density function
f (x )=k ( x−a) , if a< x <a+ 2 ,
= 0, otherwise,
where k and a are constants. It is known that E(X) = 2. Obtain the values of k and a. Also find the
1 3
median of X, the variance of X and P(X > a+1 |
a+ 2 < X < a+ 2 )

6. Let X denote the life (in hours) of a certain kind of bulb which is produced in two locations A and
B. The following are known:
(i) At location A, the distribution of X is exponential with mean 10.
(ii) At location B, the distribution of X is continuous uniform with mean 10 and variance 12.

(a) If two bulbs are selected at random from the output of location A, then what is the probability
that one will survive for 10 hours or more and the other will fail to do so?
(b) If one bulb is selected at random from the output of location B, then what is the probability that
it will survive for 12 hours or more?

7. If a person gets Rs. (2x+5) where x denotes the number appearing when a balanced die is rolled
once, how much money can he expect per game in the long run?
8. A shopkeeper has the facility to store a large number of a perishable item. He buys it at Rs. 30 per
item and sells at Rs. 50. Any item left unsold at the end of the day is a total loss. The probability
distribution of the daily demand of the item, X, is given by: P(X=4) = 0.2, P(X=5) = 0.5 and
P(X=6) = 0.3. How many items should he store such that his profit is a maximum?

9. If the IQ of students in a particular university is assumed to be normally distributed with mean

100 and sd 5, what is the probability that if 2 students are selected at random from this university
both will have IQ’s between 102 and 110?