Search on Mathematics… Log in Sign up

Anybody can ask a question

Mathematics Stack Exchange is a question
and answer site for people studying math at
any level and professionals in related fields. It
only takes a minute to sign up. Anybody can answer

Sign up to join this community The best answers are voted up

and rise to the top

Home
Finding the expected score of a set of Ask Question

PUBLIC questions
Questions Asked 11 years, 1 month ago Modified 11 years, 1 month ago Viewed 4k times

Tags
Suppose there are 4 multiple choice questions. Each question has 6 possible answers
Users
to choose from and only one of the answers is correct. I answer the questions by
Unanswered rolling a fair die for each question and choose the die's facing value as the answer to
1
the questions. Each correct answer is 5 marks and incorrect answer is −1 mark. I
TEAMS want to find the expected score I will get.

Stack Overflow for 1

So, I could let X ∼ Binomial(4, 6
).
Teams – Start
collaborating and
sharing organizational Then, E(X) = 4( 16 ) = 2
3
. This is the average number of questions that I will be
knowledge. correct.

Since each correct answer is 5 points and wrong answer is −1 point,

2 2
3
⋅ 5 + (6 − 3
) ⋅ (−1) = −3.333 . So I say that my expected score is −3.333.

But on a second thought, if I let each question be Yi . So there are four questions, so
Y1 , . . . , Y4 . And the expected score for each question is:
1 5
Create a free Team E(Yi ) = 6
⋅5+ 6
⋅ (−1) = 0
Why Teams?
Then for four questions, 4 ⋅ E(Yi ) = 4 ⋅ 0 = 0 . In this case, then my expected score
is 0 .

Now, I am confuse. How should I think about the problem to get the expected score?

probability

Share Cite Follow asked Apr 22, 2012 at 19:39

xenon
3,308 11 35 49

Add a comment

1 Answer Sorted by: Highest score (default)

So your average score out of 4 questions is 2/3 correct and 3 1/3 incorrect

2
So your expected score is 5 × − 3 13 = 10
− 10
=0
1 3 3 3

Share Cite Follow answered Apr 22, 2012 at 19:46

Mark Bennet
98.2k 12 113 218

2
Why isn't 3
the expected number of correct questions that I will get but the average score of
1
all the 4 questions? Each of the question has 6
chance of getting correct. There are 4
1
questions. So, n = 4 and p = 6
. Let X be the number of correct questions, then
1 2
X ∼ Bin(n, p) = Bin(4, ). So, E(X) = np =
6 3
is the expected number of correct
questions, isn't it? –  xenon Apr 22, 2012 at 19:57

Yes, and therefore the expected number incorrect is 3 13 – Mark Bennet Apr 22, 2012 at
20:03

1 2
Why is the expected number of incorrect question 3 ⋅ 3
but not 4 − 3
= 3.333 ? –  xenon
Apr 22, 2012 at 20:08

The number of incorrect answers is three and one third = ten thirds. The computation you
have given in the question makes this five and one third. – Mark Bennet Apr 22, 2012 at
20:13

ohh... I see. I thought it was a multiplication. Thanks! –  xenon Apr 22, 2012 at 20:18

Add a comment

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged probability .

Featured on Meta

AI/ML Tool examples part 3 - Title-Drafting Assistant

We are graduating the updated button styling for vote arrows

Related

0 Calculate Expectation : 150 questions each with 4 options

6 Expectation score of multiple choice test

0 Probability of 3 questions

0 Expected score in a multiple-choice test

1 Optimal strategy for answering multiple choice test with positive expected value.

1 Binomial Questions

1 Finding the standard deviation of a set of mulitple questions

1 In a "match-the-following" test with N questions and N possible answers, what is the

expectation value of my score if I guess randomly?

Hot Network Questions

Are "computable problem" and "computable function" the same thing?

Non-native speakers struggle to come up with decent variable names and function names

In Return of the King has there been any explanation for the role of the third eagle?

How do I make sure that a hook is not misinterpreted as a writing mistake or plot holes?

Does the level 4 Serpentis power include the level 2 and 3 powers?

Pythonic way for validating and categorizing user input

How would you translate "too" and "to" as in "The science is *too* bookish and nerdy *to*
understand, oh no!" to Latin?

What is this variable "RlsSvcPort" in my System environment variable?

Is there a system of logic which denies DNI?

Building a settlement in a place in temporal stasis. Is it possible?

how to get metadata as a `0x${string}` type

more hot questions

Question feed

MATHEMATICS
Tour Help Chat Contact Feedback

COMPANY
Stack Overflow Teams Advertising Collectives Talent About Press Legal Privacy Policy Terms of Service
Cookie Settings Cookie Policy

STACK EXCHANGE NETWORK

Technology Culture & recreation Life & arts Science Professional Business API Data

Blog Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram

Site design / logo © 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. rev 2023.5.30.43465