Statistics I. GEI Degree.

University of Barcelona.
Lecturer: Cristina Lopez-Mayan

UNIT 2. PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS

𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒕 𝟐. 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒃𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔

PD.1. In each of the following cases, decide whether or not a binomial distribution is an appropriate
model, and justify your answer.
(a) A firm uses a computer-based training module to prepare 20 machinists to use new numerically
controlled lathes. The module contains a test at the end of the course; X is the number who perform
satisfactorily in the test.
(b) The list of potential product testers for a new product contains 100 persons chosen at random
from the adult residents of a large city. Each person on the list is asked whether he or she would
participate in the study if given the chance; X is the number who say “Yes.”

PD.2. A believer in the “random walk” theory of stock markets thinks that an index of stock prices has
probability 0.65 of increasing in any year. Moreover, the change in the index in any given year is not
influenced by whether it rose or fell in earlier years. Let X be the number of years among the next 5
years in which the index rises.
(a) X has a binomial distribution. What are n and p?
(b) What are the possible values that X can take?
(c) Find the probability of each value of X. Draw a probability histogram for the distribution of X.
(d) What are the mean and standard deviation of this distribution?

PD.3. A national home improvement and hardware chain provides health insurance to its full-time
employees. On the basis of past experience with companies similar to this one, the insurance carrier
for this chain of stores expects 6 hospitalizations per month, on average. Employee turnover within
the chain of stores is approximately 32%; however, the overall size and general demographic
characteristics of the workforce remain fairly consistent over time. This stability within the
workforce makes the Poisson model reasonable.
(a) What assumption must be made about hospitalizations for different employees?
(b) What is the probability of 2 or fewer hospitalizations in the next month?
(c) What is the probability of more than 2 hospitalizations in the next month?
(d) What is the probability of at least 8 hospitalizations in the next month?

PD.4. The number of calls received between 8 A.M. and 9 A.M. by a software developer’s technical
support line has a Poisson distribution with a mean of 14.
(a) What is the probability of at least 5 calls between 8 A.M. and 9 A.M.?
(b) What is the probability of at least 5 calls between 8:15 A.M. and 8:45 A.M.?
(c) What is the probability of at least 5 calls between 8:15 A.M. and 8:30 A.M.?


PD.5. The City of Chicago reports that on an average day 15,000 emergency calls come into the city’s
911 system. Assuming a Poisson distribution with this reported mean rate, use the Normal
distribution to find the range in which we would expect 99.7% of the calls to fall.

© Carme Riera i Prunera-Cristina Lopez-Mayan
Statistics
Probability Distributions

PD.6. Suppose a random number N is taken from 690 to 850 in a uniform distribution. Find the
probability of a number N being greater than 790?


There are two major tests of readiness for college, the ACT and the SAT. ACT scores are reported on
a scale from 1 to 3. The distribution of ACT scores for more than 1 million students in a recent high
school graduating class was roughly Normal with mean µ = 20.8 and standard deviation σ = 4.8. SAT
scores are reported on a scale from 400 to 1600. The SAT scores for 1.4 million students in the same
graduating class were roughly Normal with mean µ = 1026 and standard deviation σ = 209.
Exercises PD.7 to PD.9 are based on this information.

PD.7. Jacob scores 17 on the ACT. Emily scores 680 on the SAT. Assuming that both tests measure the
same thing, who has the higher score? Report the z-scores for both students.


PD.8. Maria scores 29 on the ACT. Assuming that both tests measure the same thing, what score on
the SAT is equivalent to Maria’s ACT score?


PD.9. How low is the bottom 20%? That is, what SAT scores make up the bottom 20% of all scores?

PD.10. The time spent waiting between events is often modeled using the exponential distribution.
For example, suppose that on average 30 consumers per hour arrive at a store and that the time
between arrivals is exponentially distributed.
(a) On average, how many minutes elapse between successive arrivals?
(b) When the store first opens, how long on average does it take for three customers to arrive?
(c) After a customer arrives, find the probability that it takes less than one minute for the next
customer to arrive.
(d) After a customer arrives, find the probability that it takes more than five minutes for the next
customer to arrive.
(e) Seventy percent of the customers arrive within how many minutes of the previous customer?
(f) Is an exponential distribution reasonable for this situation? Justify your answer


PD.11. Bigger animals tend to carry their young longer before birth. The length of horse pregnancies
from conception to birth varies according to a roughly Normal distribution with mean 336 days and
standard deviation 3 days.
(a) Almost all (99.7%) horse pregnancies fall in what range of lengths?
(b) What percent of horse pregnancies are longer than 339 days?

© Carme Riera i Prunera-Cristina Lopez-Mayan

Statistics