HW2: 7.20, 7.108, 7.109, 7.110, 7.113, 7.130, 7.133, 7.

138

7.20 The distance a car travels on a tank of gasoline is a random variable.

a) What are the possible values of this random variable?

any value between 0 and several hundred

miles

b) Are the values countable? Explain.

ANSWER ↓
No

No, because we cannot identify the second value or any other value larger than 0

c) Is there a finite number of values? Explain.

ANSWER ↓
No

uncountable means infinite.

d) Is the random variable discrete or continuous? Explain.

ANSWER ↓
Continuous

7.108 A sign on the gas pumps of a chain of gasoline stations encourages customers to have their oil checked with
the claim that one out of four cars needs to have oil added. If this is true, what is the probability of the following
events?

a) One out of the next four cars needs oil

ANSWER ↓
.4219

b) Two out of the next eight cars need oil

ANSWER ↓
.3114

c) Three out of the next 12 cars need oil

ANSWER ↓
.25810
7.109
The leading brand of dishwasher detergent has a 30% market share. A sample of 25 dishwasher detergent customers
was taken.

a) What is the probability that 10 or fewer customers chose the leading brand?

b) What is the probability that 11 or more customers chose the leading brand?

c) What is the probability that 10 customers chose the leading brand?

7.113 According to a Gallup poll 27% of American adults have confidence in banks. Suppose that you interview 5
Americans adults at random.

a) What is the probability that 2 or fewer have confidence in banks?

b) What is the probability that no one had confidence in banks?

c) What is the probability that 3 or more have confidence in banks?

7.110 A certain type of tomato seed germinates 90% of the time. A backyard farmer planted 25 seeds.

a) What is the probability that exactly 20 germinate?

ANSWER ↓
.0646

b) What is the probability that 20 or more germinate?

ANSWER ↓
.9666

c) What is the probability that 24 or fewer germinate?

ANSWER ↓
.9282

d) What is the expected number of seeds that germinate?

ANSWER ↓
22.5

7.130 The number of accidents that occur at a busy intersection is Poisson distributed with a mean of 3.5 per week.
Find the probability of the following events.

a) No accidents in one week

ANSWER ↓
.0302

b) Five or more accidents in one week

ANSWER ↓
.2746
c) One accident today

ANSWER ↓
.3033

7.133 Hits on a personal website occur quite infrequently. They occur randomly and independently with an average
of five per week.

a) Find the probability that the site gets 10 or more hits in a week.

b) Determine the probability that the site gets 20 or more hits in 2 weeks.

7.138 The random variable in Exercise 7.30 was the number of stores entered by customers at a mall. Suppose that
the random variable is Poisson distributed with a mean of 4.

What proportion of mall customers enter 5 stores or more?

ANSWER ↓
.3712

Compute the probability that a customer enters 3 or fewer stores.

ANSWER ↓
.4335

Calculate the probability that a customer enters exactly 4 stores.

ANSWER ↓
.1954

FOR REFERENCE FOR FINDING RANDOM VARIABLE FOR 7.138 (don’t have to show work how you
got random variable just apply it to solving 7.138)

7.30
A shopping mall estimates the probability distribution of the number of stores mall customers actually enter, as
shown in the table.

x 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
P(x) .04 .19 .22 .28 .12 .09 .06
Find the mean and standard deviation of the number of stores entered.

ANSWER ↓
2.76, 1.517