Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science

Autumn Semester, 2021

MCS 2101A Introduction to Probability and Statistics
Practice Problems (Set 1)

1. In the following problems, enumerate the sample space, the events given and calculate
their probabilities and the required conditional probabilities assuming equiprobable
outcomes.

(a) A coin is tossed 5 times. The events are A: exactly 2 heads appear, B: at least
2 heads appear, C: 2nd and 4th tosses result in tails, D: 1st toss results in a
head, B ∩ C, A ∩ C c , C ∪ D, A given C ∩ D.
(b) There are 4 children in a family. The events are A: boys and girls alternate, B:
as many boys as girls, C: three successive children of the same sex, C given B.
(c) A salesman visits each of three towns a, b and c twice, the event A: he starts
and finishes at town a.
(d) An elevator carries two people up from the ground floor in an eight-storeyed
building. A: they get down at different floors, B: one gets down at the second
floor, A ∪ B, B given A, A given B.
(e) In the card game bridge, the four players are called North, East, South and West.
Each gets 13 cards in a deal. A: East gets all the aces, B: each player gets at
least one honours card (J, Q, K or A), C: one of the players has only honours
cards, A ∪ B, B ∩ C.
(f) 20 recruits are divided at random into 4 camps of 5 recruits each. A: two friends
among them will be together, B: four friends will be separated into four camps.
(g) The letters of the word ABRACADABRA are rearranged at random. A: all the
A’s are together, B: exactly the same word results.
(h) A lottery organiser sells 1000 tickets out of which 50 are winning. A person buys
5 tickets. A: he will win no prizes, B: he wins at least 2 prizes.

2. In the board game Ludo, each piece moves along a track, at each turn the number of
steps determined by the throw of a fair die. A piece of a player is captured by one
of an opponent player if the latter lands up on the position occupied by the former.
However, more than one piece of one player in the same position renders those immune
to capture. If a piece of a player has an opponent piece two squares behind and one
of the player’s own three squares behind, and not under attack from any other piece,
what is the probability that she can avoid capture next move with certainty?
What is the actual probability of capture after both she and her opponent has moved?

3. In bridge, North and South form a team and so do East and West. What is the
probability that in a deal, any one team has 3 and the other team 1, out of the 4
aces? What is the conditional probability that these three aces will all be held by one
player?

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4. From a board consisting of 10 gentlemen and 5 ladies apart from a chairperson C and
a vice-chairperson V, 3 out of the 15 are to be chosen to constitute a committee. The
selection will be done either by C or V, with probabilities 2/3 and 1/3 respectively.
C chooses the committee members at random while V chooses them one by one, each
time giving each previously unselected lady twice as much chance of selection as each
previously unselected gentleman.

(a) If the selection were known to be made by V, what is the chance that the com-
mittee will consist of ladies only?
(b) What is the probability that all the 3 members of committee will be ladies?
(c) If the committee ultimately has all 3 ladies, what is the probability that the
selction was made by V?

5. An urn contains n tickets numbered 1, 2, . . . , n. If r tickets are drawn at random, find

the probability that the highest number to appear is m if the draws are made

(a) with replacement,

(b) without replacement, stating the appropriate conditions on n, r and m.

6. Among families with how many children would choosing one family at random make
the events that ’there are children of both sexes’ and that ’there is at most one girl’
independent?

7. 3% of the people in a certain population suffer from a rare disease. Any person
suspected to be infected is administered a test and if the result is positive, (s)he is so
diagnosed. Suppose the test correctly identifies 95% of the actually infected patients,
but in the case of 10% of people free from the disease also, yields a positive result. In
what proportion of the people testing positive would the diagnosis be correct? Repeat
the problem assuming that the test is administered a second time if the result of one
test is positive and the diagnosis of the disease is made only if the second result is
positive too. What is the underlying assumption you are making?

8. 10 children gather to play each carrying a lunchbox and a water-bottle and put them
down before starting a game. While leaving after play, however, they randomly pick
up whichever lunchbox and water-bottle they can lay their hands on. Find the prob-
abilities that

(a) none of them takes his/her water-bottle as well as lunchbox,

(b) all of them take a wrong lunchbox as well as a wrong water-bottle.

9. Two absent-minded mathematicians E and F sharing an apartment, have an umbrella

each which they forget in various ways. E always takes his when going out while F
forgets his half of the time. While returning from work, each forgets his umbrella on
a quarter of the days. Assuming that they behave independently, find the probability
that at the end of a work-day,

(a) both their umbrellas are present at home,

(b) only one umbrella is present,
(c) F left his umbrella behind at work, given that only one is around.

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10. Mr. G. S. has a revolver with 6 chambers arranged in circular fashion in the cylinder,
out of which one is at a time in the firing position. After each fire, the cylinder revolves
one-sixth of a full turn anti-clockwise, bringing the next chamber automatically to
occupy the firing position. It is known that 3 of the chambers are empty and 3 are
full. Mr. G. S. rotates the gun to bring a random chamber into the firing position,
and fires successively at Mr. X, Mr. Y and Mr. K. Find the probability that all three
of them survive and the conditional probability that Mr. K will survive given that
Mr. X and Mr. Y do, assuming that

(a) the loaded positions are random,

(b) the loaded positions are consecutive to each other.

11. If A and B are events with 0 < P (B) < 1, then show that A and B are indepen-
dent if and only if P (A|B) = P (A|B c ). Can you think of a way to justify this fact
heuristically?

12. If A, B and C are three events, show that they are independent if, and only if, they
are pairwise independent and any one of the following conditions holds:

(a) A and B ∩ C are independent,

(b) A and B ∪ C are independent,
(c) A and B∆C are independent.

13. Suppose A1 , A2 , . . . , A10 are 10 independent events. Show that (A1 ∪ Ac5 ) ∩ A2 ,
(A3 ∩ A6 ) ∪ (Ac7 ∩ A8 ) and A10 are independent.

14. If N denotes the number of throws of a fair die required for the cumulative total to
reach or exceed 4, compute its probability mass function (pmf).

15. If a fair coin is tossed 5 times and I bet 10 rupees each time on a head, losing my bet
if tail occurs but winning back Rs. 20 if head occurs, what is the distribution of the
net gain? What is the probability that my net gain is at least 20 rupees?

16. Show that X ∼ B(n, p) if and only if n − X ∼ B(n, 1 − p). What is the interpretation
of this fact?

17. A target consists of five concentric circles with radii 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 units respectively,
fetching 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 and 5 points respectively. What is

(a) the probability of any shot fetching 6 or 7 points;

(b) the distribution of the number of shots fetching 6 points, if the target is shot at
random 10 times;
(c) the distribution of a reward that is proportional to the square root of the number
of points, denoting the constant of proportionality by a?

18. If a number is chosen at random from the interval (0, 1), find the probability that

(a) its first decimal digit is a 5,

(b) its second decimal digit is at most 7,
(c) the first decimal digit of its square root is a 3.

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19. (Random variables and decimal/binary/p-adic representations) As you are surely
aware, the decimal representation of a number x lying in the unit interval [0, 1) as

x = (0.x1 x2 x3 . . .)10

where x1 , x2 , . . . are decimal digits, i.e. lie in {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}, means

∞
X xn
x=
n=1
10n

and one can obtain the digits recursively as follows: x1 is the integer part of 10x, x2
that of 10(10x − x1 ) and so on; so, in general, after obtaining x1 , x2 , . . . , xn , we would
define   
 n 
 n+1
x −
X xj 
xn+1 = 10 .
j=1
10j

Let us try to see what we can say about the digits if x were not fixed, but a random
point.
Specifically, let U denote a point chosen at random from [0, 1) and define (Xn )n≥1
denote its decimal digits obtained as above. Then clearly, each Xn is a random variable
taking values in the set S := {0, 1, 2, . . . , 9}.
h 
j j+1
(a) Show that the event {X1 = j} is the same as {U ∈ 10 , 10 }, for each j ∈ S.
(b) Conclude that X1 has a discrete uniform distribution on S.
(c) Show
h that for j  ∈ S, X2 = j if and only if U lies in one of the intervals
i j i j+1
10 + 10 , 10 + 102 , where i ranges over S. (Actually, the value of i is deter-
mined by X1 ).
(d) Conclude that X2 also has the same distribution as X1 .
(e) Argue in the same fashion to prove that each Xn has a discrete uniform distri-
bution on S.
(f) Now, replace decimal representations to binary representations:

x = (0.x1 x2 . . .)2 ∈ [0, 1)

where xn ∈ {0, 1} means x = ∞ xn

P
n=1 2n .
Argue that if U chosen at random from [0, 1) is expressed in terms of its binary
digits X1 , X2 , . . ., say, then each Xn will have a discrete uniform distribution on
{0, 1} (which is just a Bernoulli b 12 distribution!).
(g) Generalize the above to the p-adic expansion of U where p ≥ 2 is any natural
number.