Problem 4: A is known to tell the truth in 5 cases out of 6 and he states that a white

ball was drawn from a bag containing 8 black and 1 white ball. Find the probability that
the white ball was drawn.
Solution:
Let, W: Event that A draws a white ball
T: Event that A speak truth.
P (W ∩T )
P(W|T) =
P (T )

P (W ) P(T ∨W )
=
P ( W ) P ( T|W )+ P ( W ' ) P ( T|W ' )
1 5
×
9 6
=
1 5 8 1
× + ×
9 6 9 6
5
¿ Therefore, the probability that white ball is drawn is 5/13.
13
≈ 0.38

Problem 5: Donna speaks the truth 4 out of 5 times. A die is tossed. She reports that it
is a 6. What are the chances that there actually was a 6?

Let, E: be the event that Donna reports six occurring in the throwing of the die
A: be the event that six occurs
B: be the event that six does not occurs
1
P(A)¿
6
5
P(B)=
6
4
P(E|A) =
5
 1
P(E|B) =
5

P(A|E) =
P ( A ) P ( E| A )
=
( 1 4
6 6)( ) =
4
30 4
= ≈ 0. 44
P ( A ) P ( E| A ) + P ( B ) P ( E|B )
( 16 )( 46 )+( 56 )( 15 ) 4−5
30
9

Therefore, the probability that it is actually 6 turns out is 4/9.

Problem 6:
A card from a pack of 52 cards is lost. From the remaining cards of the pack, two
cards are drawn and are found to be both diamonds. Find the probability of the
lost card being a diamond.

Let, D: be the event that the missing card is diamond

H: be the event that the missing card is Heart
S: be the event that the missing card is Spade
C: be the event that the missing card is Club
A: be the event of drawing two diamonds from the cards.

13 1
P(D)= =
52 4
13 1
P(H)= =
52 4
13 1
P(S)= =
52 4
13 1
P(C)= =
52 4

P(A|D)= probability of drawing two diamonds cards given that on

diamond card is missing
 12C 2
=
51C 2

P(A|H)= probability of drawing two diamonds cards given that one heart
card is missing
13C 2
=
51C 2
13C 2
Similarly, P(A|S) = =
51C 2
13C 2
And P(D|A) =
31C 2
P ( D ) P ( A|D )
P=
P ( D ) P ( A|D ) + P ( H ) P ( A|H ) + P ( S ) P ( A|S ) + ( C ) P ( A|C )
11
= Therefore, the probability of the lost card being a diamond is 11/50.
50

Problem 7:
Marie is getting married tomorrow, at an outdoor ceremony in the desert. In recent
years, it has rained only 5 days each year. Unfortunately, the weatherman has
predicted rain for tomorrow. When it actually rains, the weatherman correctly forecasts
rain 90% of the time. When it doesn't rain, he incorrectly forecasts rain 10% of the
time. What is the probability that it will rain on the day of Marie's wedding?
Let, R: be the event that it will rain
N: be the event that it will not rain
A: be the event that rain is predicted

P ( R ) P ( A|R )
P(R|A)=
P ( R ) P ( A|R ) + P ( N ) P ( A|N )
 1
∗9
73
10
=
1 72
∗9 ∗1
73 73
+
10 10
9 1
= =
81 9
Therefore, the probability that it will rain on Marie’s wedding is 1/9.

Problem 8:
Suppose there are two full bowls of cookies. Bowl #1 has 10 chocolate chip and 30
plain cookies, while bowl #2 has 20 of each. Our friend Fred picks a bowl at random,
and then picks a cookie at random. We may assume there is no reason to believe Fred
treats one bowl differently from another, likewise for the cookies. The cookie turns out
to be a plain one. How probable is it that Fred picked it out of Bowl #1?
Let, B1 be the event of drawing cookies in bowl 1
B2 be the event of drawing cookies in bowl 2
E be the event of drawing plain cookie
P ( E|B1 ) P(B 1)
Let, (B1|E) =
P ( E|B 1) P ( B 1 ) + P ( E|B2 ) P(B 2)

30
∗1
40
2 3
= =
30 1 5
∗1 ∗1
40 2
+
2 2

Therefore, the probability that a plain cookie will be drawn in Box 1 is 3/5.

Problem 9:
The blue M&M was introduced in 1995. Before then, the colour mix in a bag of plain
M&Ms was (30% Brown, 20% Yellow, 20% Red, 10% Green, 10% Orange, 10% Tan).
Afterward it was (24% Blue, 20% Green, 16% Orange, 14% Yellow, 13% Red, 13%
Brown). A friend of mine has two bags of M&Ms, and he tells me that one is from 1994
and one from 1996. He will not tell me, which is which, but he gives me one M&M from
each bag. One is yellow and one is green. What is the probability that the yellow M&M
came from the 1994 bag?

Let, B1: the bag from 1994

B2: the bag from 1996
Y: yellow, R: red, G: green, O: orange, and T: Tan
P(Y|B1) = 0.2
P(G|B1) = 0.1
P(Y|B2) =0.14
P(G|B2) =0.2
Probability of choosing either of the 2 bags =0.5
The probability of getting a ‘yellow’ M&M from 1994 is given by,
P(Y ∨B 1)∗P(B 1)
P(B1| Y) =
P ( Y |B 1 )∗P ( B 1 ) + P(Y ∨B 2)∗P( B 2)
( 0.2 ) ( 0.5 )
=
( 0.2 )( 0.5 )+ ( 0.14 ) ( 0.5 )
0.1 10
= or
0.17 17
Therefore, the probability that the yellow M&M came from the 1994 bag is
approximately 0.74.

Problem 10:
Two people have left traces of their own blood at the scene of a crime. A
suspect, Oliver, is tested and found to have type O blood. The blood groups of
the two traces are found to be of type O (a common type in the local population,
having frequency 60%) and of type AB (a rare type, with frequency 1%). Do
these data (the blood types found at the scene) give evidence in favour of the
 proposition that Oliver was one of the two people whose blood was found at the
scene?
Let, S = Oliver and another unknown person were at the scene of the crime
Sc = two unknown people were at the scene of the crime’

The data is:

D = ‘type ‘O’ and ‘AB’ blood were found’

Solution:
P(D∨S)
The Bayes factor for Oliver’s presence is BF OLIVER = C . We compute the
P(D∨S )
numerator and denominator of this separately.
The data says that both type O and type AB blood were found. If Oliver was at the scene then
‘type O’ blood would be there. So P(D|S) is the probability that the other person had type AB
blood. We are told this is .01, so P(D|S) = 0.01.

If Oliver was not at the scene then there were two random people one with type O and one
with type AB blood. The probability of this is 2 · 0.6 · 0.01. The factor of 2 is because there are
two ways this can happen –the first person is type O and the second is type AB or vice versa.*

Thus, the Bayes factor for Oliver’s presence is

P(D∨S)
BF OLIVER = C
P(D∨S )
0.01
BF OLIVER =
2 ∙ 0.6 ∙0.01
0.01
BF OLIVER =
0.12
BF OLIVER =0.83

Since BFOLIVER < 1, the data provides (weak) evidence against Oliver being at
the scene.