AL/RM/GK-D/DA/GD/EA/WMO

30/06/2021

DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS AND ACTUARIAL SCIENCE

STAT 112: Introduction Statistics and Probability 2
EXERCISE 1
1. (a) State the axioms of probability.
(b) Let E1 and E2 be two events associated with a sample space S. Define, in terms of
probability, what it means to say E1 and E2 are:
i) Exhaustive
ii) Independent
(c) What is the difference between Mutually exclusive and Complementary events?
(d) Show that if A1 , A 2 ,… , Ak are mutually exclusive events, then
P ( A 1 ∪ A 2 ∪… ∪ Ak| B ¿=P ( A1|B ) + P ( A2|B ) +…+ P ( A k ∨B).

2. (a) Two events E1 and E2 associated with a sample space of an experiment are such that
P ( E1 )=0.27 , P ( E2 )=0.40 and P ( E1 ∪ E 2 )=0.58 . Determine whether E1 and E2 are
independent.
(b) Two events A and B are such that, they are independent and P ( A )=x and
P ( B )=x+ 0.2 and P ( A ∩ B )=0.15 . Find
i) the value of x
ii) P ( A ∪ B ) and P( A c / Bc ) , where Ac , B c are the complements of events
A and B respectively.

3. (a) What is a partition of a sample space?

(b) Differentiate between mutually independent and pairwise independent events.
(c) A , B and C are three mutually independent events, such that P ( A )=0.5 , P ( B )=0.6
and P ( C ) =0.7 . What is the conditional probability that even A occurs given that at
least one of A , B and C occur?

4. (a) Show that if A and B are any two independent events on the sample space of an
experiment, then A and B are also independent, where A and B are the complements
of A and B respectively.
(b) Show that if P ( A|B )=1 then P ( B c| A c )=1.
(c) For three events A , B and C , we know that A and C are independent, B and C are
independent, A and B are disjoint.
3 P ( A ∪C )=2, 4 P ( B ∪C )=3 , 12 P ( A ∪ B ∪C ) =11
Find P ( A ) , P( B) and P(C).

5∧2 x
5. Suppose that 8 P ( A ∪ B ) = =1 where P ( B )=x .
[ P ( A )]
i. For what values of x are A and B mutually exclusive? For this value of x , are
A and B independent?
ii. For what values of x , are A and B independent?
Determine whether for this value of x, A and B are mutually exclusive.

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6. (a) Gideon rolls two (2) six-sided dice once. What is the probability that the sum of the
outcomes of both dice are odd or divisible by 5?
(b) Two (2) dice are rolled. What is the conditional probability that at least one lands on 6
given that the dice land on two different numbers?
7. (a) If the letters of the word PROBLEM are arranged at random without repetition, find
the probability that there will be five letters between O and E.
(b) A committee of 5 is to be selected from a group of 6 men and 9 women. If the
selection is made randomly, what is the probability that the committee consists of
3 men and 2 women?

8. (a) An urn contains m white and n black balls. If two balls are drawn at random, find the
probability that the balls will be of
(i) different colours when m=4 and n=3
(ii) same colour when m and n are positive numbers.
(b) Thirty (30) identical balls except for colour are placed in three urns such that, Urn I
contains 6 white, 5 red and 4 black balls. Urn II contains 2 white, 3 red and 5 black
balls. Urn III contains only 5 black balls. If a ball is selected, what is the probability
that it is black?

9. (a) Two numbers are chosen at random from among the numbers 1 to 10 without
replacement. Find the probability that the second number chosen is 5.
(b) A box contains 8 yellow, 5 green and 7 black balls identical to each other except for
colour. 3 balls are drawn at random one after the other without replacement. Find the
probability that:
(i) there will be one ball of each colour.
(ii) exactly one ball will be black
(iii) at least one ball will be black
(iv) the second ball will be black
(v) the second ball will be black given that the first is black.

10. (a) State, without proof: (i) the Multiplication rule of probability.
(ii) the Total Probability Rule.
(b) (i) The athletic coach of the University of Ghana found that 31% of the
basketball players had grade A in academic writing. If 2% of the students
at the school are basketball players, what is the probability that a student
chosen at random will be a basketball player with grade A?
(ii) There are 3 hotels in town. 20% of your family stays at hotel B1 . 50% stay at
hotel B 2 and 30% stay at hotel B 3. Further, plumbing is faulty in 5% of the
rooms in hotel B1 , 4% of the rooms in B 2 and 8% of the rooms in B 3. What
is the probability that a random, a family member has faulty plumbing?

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11. (a) State and prove Bayes’ theorem.

(b) In a bolt manufacturing factory, machines A , B , and C produce 25%, 30% and 45% of
the total outputs, respectively. Of their outputs, 7%, 6% and 4% are defective bolt,
respectively.
(i) What is the probability that a bolt drawn at random from production
will be defective?
(ii) If a bolt drawn at random from production is found to be defective,
what is the probability that it was manufactured by machine C ?

12. Bright, Emma, Justice and Michael are doctors. Bright has 20% of patients, Emma has 60%,
Justice has 15% and Michael has 5% of the patients. Bright and Michael are each rude to 1 in
20 patients while Emma and Justice are each rude to 1 in 10 patients. If you are treated
rudely, what is the probability that you went to see Emma?

13. A blood test indicates the presence of a particular disease 95% of the time when the disease is
actually present. The same test indicates the presence of the disease 0.5% of the time when
the disease is not present. One percent of the population actually has the disease. Calculate
the probability that a person has the disease given that the test indicates the presence of the
disease.

14. A bin contains 3 different types of disposable flashlight. The probability that type 1 flashlight
will give over 200 hours of use is 0.5 with corresponding probabilities for type 2 and type 3
flashlight being 0.6 and 0.8 respectively. Suppose that 40% of the flashlight in the bin are
type 1, 28% are type 2 and 32% of type 3.
a. Find the probability that a random flashlight will give more than 200 hours of use.
b. Given that a flashlight last over 200 hours, what is the probability that it was a type i
flashlight? Where i=1 , 2 ,3

15. Mike tries to find where his birthday present is hidden. With probability 0.9, the present was
hidden by Mum. With probability 0.1, it was hidden by Dad. When Mum hides the present,
she hides it upstairs 70% of the time and downstairs 30% of the time. Dad is equally likely to
hide it upstairs or downstairs.
i. What is the probability that the present is upstairs?
ii. Given that it is downstairs, what is the probability that, it is hidden by Dad?

16. A local bank reviewed its credit card policy with the intention of recalling some of its credit
cards. In the past, approximately 5% of cardholders defaulted, leaving the bank unable to
collect the outstanding balance. Hence, management established a prior probability of 0.05
that any particular card-holder will default. The bank also found that the probability of
missing a monthly payment is 0.2 for customers who do not default. Of course, the
probability of missing a monthly payment for those who default is 1.
i. Given that a customer missed one or more monthly payments, compute the
posterior probability that a customer will default.

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ii. The bank would like to recall its card if the probability that a customer will
default is greater than 0.20. should the bank recall its card if the customer
misses a monthly payment.

17. Upon arrival at the Legon Hospital’s emergency room, patients are categorized according to
their condition as critical, severe, or stable. In the past year, 10% of the emergency room
patient patients were critical, 30% were serious, and the rest were stable; 40% of the critical
patients died; 10% of the severe patients died; and only 1% of the stable patients died. Given
that a patient survived, what is the probability that the patient was categorized as severe upon
survival.

18. In answering a question on a multiple-choice test, Christian either knows the answer or
guesses. Let p be the probability that he knows the answer and 1− p be that probability that
he guesses. Assume that if he guesses at the answer, he will be correct with probability 1/m,
where m is the number of multiple-choice alternatives. What is the conditional probability
that he knew the answer to a question given that he answered it correctly?

19. Ninety-eight percent of all babies survive delivery. However, 15 percent of all births involve
Caesarean C section, and when a C section is performed, the baby survives 96 percent of the
time. If a random chosen pregnant woman does not have a C section, what is the probability
that her baby survives?

20. In an article about investment alternatives, Money magazine reported that drug stocks
provide a potential for long-term growth, with over 50% off the adult population of Ghana
taking prescription drugs on a regular basis. For adults aged 65 and older, 82% take
prescription drugs regularly. For adults aged 18 to 64, 49% take prescription drugs regularly.
The 18-64 age group age group accounts for 83.5% of the adult population.
a. What is the probability that a randomly selected adult is 65 or older?
b. Given an adult takes prescription drugs regularly, what is the probability that the
adult is 65 or older?

21. According to medical research, fever is a common symptom of most of the very common
infections in the world. This is also true for patients who report at Legon Hospital. In the said,
18.5% of those who reported Malaria showed fever symptoms, 10.5% of those who reported
Flu showed fever symptoms, 12% of those who reported Cholera showed fever symptoms
and 8% of all other cases reported showed fever symptoms. It is also known that,
of all cases reported at the Legon Hospital, 38% are Malaria, 16% are Flu and 18% are
Cholera. Supposing no individual over a period reported of more than a case, what is the
probability that a patient reporting at the Legon Hospital:
(i) will have a fever symptom.
(ii) is suffering from Cholera when the patient has fever symptoms.
(iii) will report of Malaria when the patient has fever symptoms.

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22. A chief inspector at the Criminal Investigations Department at the Nima Divisional Police
Station is 70% convinced, at a certain point on an investigation, of the guilt of a suspect for a
murder case. Suppose a new piece of evidence is uncovered that shows the criminal has
baldness. In addition, 10% of the population of Ghana has baldness. Assume that the
probability of the suspect having the characteristic if he is in fact, innocent is equal to the
proportion of the population possessing baldness. How certain should the chief inspector now
be, if it turns out that the suspect has this characteristic (baldness)?

23. A production process produces bottles of MacLean’s mouth wash from GlaxoSmithKline
Group of Companies. On average, 20% of all bottles produced are defective. Each bottle is
inspected before being dispatched. Items that pass inspection are dispatched and those not
classified good are scrapped. Statistics from the quality assurance division reveals that a
quality inspector’s probability of misclassifying a single bottle is 0.1.
(i) What proportion of the bottles will be classified good?
(ii) What is the quality of dispatched mouth wash ie . what percentage of mouth
washes dispatched are good?
(iii) Hence, do you agree that the inspection in this process is good? Explain.