Tutorial 2: Discrete Probability Distribution

1. Find the probability distribution of boys in the family of 3 children assuming equal probability for boys
and girls.

2. From a lot of 10 items containing 3 defectives, a sample of 4 items is drawn at random. Let the random
variable X denote the no. of defective items in the sample. Answer the following when the sample is
drawn (without replacement)
a) Find the probability distribution of X
b) Find P(X  1), P(X  1) and P(0  X  2) [Ans: 2/3, 5/6, 1/2]
c) Obtain the mean and variance for the distribution.

3. A random variable X has the following probability distribution:

x: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
P(x): a 3a 5a 7a 9a 11a 13a 15a 17a
a) Determine the value of a (Ans: 1/81)
b) Find P(X 3), P(X  3), P(0  X  5) (Ans: 9/81, 72/81, 24/81)
c) What is the smallest value of x for which P(X  x) > 0.5
d) Construct Cumulative Distribution Function.

4. A player tosses 3 fair coins. He wins Rs.10, if 3 heads appears, Rs.6 if 2 heads appear and Rs.2 if one
head appears. On the other hand, he loses Rs.25, if 3 tails appear. Find the expected gain of the player.

5. Consider a group of five potential blood donors - A, B, C, D, and E - of whom only A and B have O+
type blood. Five blood samples, one from each individual, will be typed in random order until an O+
individual is identified. If the random variable X is number of typings necessary to identify an O +
individual, obtain the probability mass function of X.

Binomial Distribution

6. In a family of 8 children, what is the probability of getting exactly 3 girls?

7. Out of 9000 families 4 children each, how many families would you expect to have (i) 2 boys and 2
girls (ii) at least one boy (iii) no girls (iv) at most 2 girls (v) at least one boy and one girl. [Ans: 3375,
8438, 563, 6188, 8438]

8. A coin is tossed ten times. Find the probability of getting at least 7 heads.

9. A student selects his answer on true/false exam by tossing a coin (so that any particular answer has a
0.5 prob. of being correct). He must answer at least 70% correctly in order to pass. Find the probability
of passing when the number of questions is 10.

10. A multiple-choice test consists of 15 questions and for each question; there are 5 possible answers. If
for each question, an answer is selected in a completely random fashion, what is the probability that (a)
exactly 8 (b) at least 2 are answered correctly?

11. The prob. that a patient recovers from a disease is 0.4. If 15 people are known to have contracted this
disease, what is the probability that (a) at least 10 survive. (b) from 3 to 8 survive (c) exactly 5 survives

Negative Binomial Distribution

12. A scientist inoculates several mice, one at a time, with a disease germ until he finds two, which have
contracted the disease. If the prob. of contracting the disease is 1/6, what is the prob. that eight mice are
required? (0.0651)
13. A pediatrician wishes to recruit 5 couples, each of whom is expecting their first child, to participate in a
new natural child birth regimen. Let p = P (a randomly selected couple agrees to participate). If p = 0.2,
what is the probability that 15 couples must be asked before 5 are found who agree to participate?

14. If a boy is throwing stones at a target, what is the probability that his 10th throw is his 5th hit, if the
probability of hitting the target at any trial is 0.5? [ 0.123]

15. Three people toss a coin and odd man pays for the coffee. If the coins all turn up the same, they toss
again. Find the prob. that fewer than 4 tosses are needed. (63/64)

16. Find the prob. that a person flipping a coin gets the third head on the seventh flip. (0.1172)

17. The prob. that a student pilot passes the written test for his professional license is 0.7. Find the prob.
that a person passes the test on the third try. (0.063)

Poisson Distribution

18. Suppose we are investigating the safety of a dangerous intersection of a road. Past police records
indicate a mean of 5 accidents per month at this intersection. Suppose the number of accidents is
distributed according to a Poisson distribution. Calculate the probability in any month of exactly 0 and
between 2 to 4 accidents. [068 Magh]

19. A manufacturer of matchstick knows that on average 2% of his production is defective. He sells
matchsticks in boxes of 100 and guarantees that not more than 2 matchsticks will be defective. what is
the probability that a match box selected at random will meet the guaranteed quality?

20. In a certain factory, there is 0.2% probability for any blade to be defective. Blades are supplied in
packets of 10. Using Poisson distribution, calculate the approximate no. of packets containing (a) no
defective (b) one defective (c) two defective respectively in a consignment of 20,000 packets. [19604,
392, 4]

21. Let X= no. of trees in a certain forest found to be suffering from a rare disease and suppose that X has a
Poisson distribution with  = 5, then find the probability that (a) exactly 2 trees have the disease (b) at
most 2 suffer from the disease [0.084, 0.125]

22. At a checkout counter, customers arrive at an average rate of 1.5 per minute. Find the probability. that
(a) at most four will arrive in any given minute. (b) at least three will arrive during an interval of 2
minutes (c) at most 15 will arrive during an interval of 6 minutes. [0.981, 0.577, 0.978]

23. The probability of a serious fire during a given year to any one house in a particular city is believed to
be 0.005. A particular insurance company holds fire insurance policies on 1000 homes in this city.
(a) Find the probability that the company will not have any serious fire damage claims by the owners of
these homes during the next year [0 .006738]
(b) Find the probability they will have no more than three claims.[0.2650]

Hypergeometric distribution

24. A library has 20 copies of textbooks of which 8 are 1st edition and 12 are 2nd edition. The teacher has
requested 5 copies of that book. If the books are selected in random, what is the probability that 2 of
those selected are 2nd edition? [ 0.238]

25. A shipment of 100 tape recorders contains 25 defective, 10 of them are randomly chosen for inspection,
what is the probability that 2 of the 10 will be defective? Find by using (a) Hyper geometric distribution
(b) Binomial distribution [ 0.292, 0.282]
26. If 6 of 18 new buildings in a city violate the building code, what is the probability that a building
inspector, who randomly selects 4 of the new building, for inspection, will catch
a) None of the new building that violates the building code. [0.1617]
b) One of the new buildings that violates the building code. [0.4313]
c) At least 3 of the new building that violate the building code. [0.0833]

27. Among 300 employees, 240 are union members, while the others are not. If 8 of the employees are
chosen by lot to serve on the committee, find the probability that 5 of them will be union members
while the others are not using a) Hyper geometric distribution b) Binomial distribution [0.1470, 0.1468]

***
Miscellaneous Questions
.
1) A fair dice was rolled until one gets a Six. Find the expected number of toss required. [2075
Chaitra] [Ans: 6]

2) Five coins are tossed 320 times. If coins are unbiased, construct the probability distribution table of
number of heads obtained. Also find the mean, variance of the probability distribution. [2071 Magh]

3) It has been claimed that in 60% of all solar heat installations the utility bill is reduced by at least one-
third. Accordingly, what are the probabilities that the utility bill will be reduced by at least one-third
in (a) four of five installations (b) at least four of five installations? [0.259, 0.337] [2071 Magh]

4) If a publisher of a certain book ensures that its books are free of typographical error, so that the
probability of any given page containing at least one such error is 0.005 and errors are independent
from page to page, what is the probability that one of its 400 pages book will contain (a) exactly one
page with errors? (b) at most three pages with errors? [0.271, 0.857] [073 Chaitra]

5) A quality control engineer inspects a random sample of 3 batteries from each lot of 24 car batteries
ready to shipped. if such a lot contains 6 batteries with slight defects, find the probability
distribution of number of defective batteries. Also find the mean and variance of the distribution.
[2070 Asadh]

***