1) The first task is to review some information that might be useful later:

a) Write a brief definition of the word "quartile" as we have used it in previous weeks. Be
sure to provide a citation: _____________________________.
Quartiles divide an ordered set of data into quarters, or 4 equal parts. (Quartiles, n.d.)
Quartiles. (n.d.). Math is fun. Retrieved December 24, 2019, from
https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/quartiles.html.
b) Write a brief definition of the word "quantile" as it might be used in statistics. Be sure
to provide a citation (do not cut and paste... use your own words to summarize what you
discovered): ________________________________.
Quartiles split an ordered set of data into quartered sets. To find the quartiles, order the
set into ascending order, find the median, and find the middle numbers between the lower half
and the upper half of the data set. In R, the summary() function can also be used for the data set.
(Yakir, 2011).
Yakir, B. (2011). 3.2.2 Box Plots. Introduction to Statistical Thinking (With R, Without
Calculus). The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. pp. 32.
c) From within interactive R, enter the command shown below (the command shows a help
page for the pbinom command). Provide a very brief description of the arguments that are
passed to the pbinom() command ("arguments" in computer programming are the options
that you give to a function so that the function can calculate what you want it to). Note that
one of the arguments is lower.tail = TRUE, and because there is a value assigned to it with
the equals sign, it means that if you do not enter a new value for lower.tail, it will be set to
TRUE by default. Do not type the ">" into R, it is the command prompt:

> ?pbinom – (expectation, number of trials, probability of success of each trial)

2) You can use the dbinom() command (function) in R to determine the probability of
getting 0 heads when you flip a fair coin four times (the probability of getting heads is 0.5):

dbinom(0, size=4, prob=0.5)

Find the equivalent values for getting 1, 2, 3, or 4 heads when you flip the coin four times.
TIP: after you run the first dbinom() command, press the up arrow and make a small
change and run it again.

probability of getting exactly 1 head: 0.25

probability of getting exactly 2 heads: 0.375

probability of getting exactly 3 heads: 0.25

probability of getting exactly 4 heads: 0.0625

3) Use the pbinom() function in R to show the cumulative probability of getting 0, 1, 2, 3, or

4 heads when you flip the coin 4 times (this is the same as finding the probability than the
value is less than or equal to 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4.)

probability of getting no more than 0 heads: 0.0625

probability of getting no more than 1 head: 0.3125

probability of getting no more than 2 heads: 0.6875

probability of getting no more than 3 heads: 0.9375

probability of getting no more than 4 heads: 1

4) The following R command will show the probability of exactly 6 successes in an

experiment that has 10 trials in which the probability of success for each trial is 0.5:

dbinom(6, size=10, prob=0.5) (True/False)

True
5) Read Yakir (2011, pp. 68-69) carefully to review the meaning of the pbinom function
(related to tests that a value will be “equal to” versus “less than or equal to” a criterion
value). What is the probability of getting fewer than 2 heads when you flip a fair coin 3
times (round to 2 decimal places) ? ______
0.5
6) What is the probability of getting no more than 3 heads when you flip a fair coin 5 times
(be sure to understand the wording differences between this question and the previous
one—round to 2 decimal places)? ________
0.81
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Information

The exponential distribution is a continuous distribution. The main R functions that we

will use for the exponential distribution are pexp() and qexp(). Here is an example of the
pexp() function. Leaves are falling from a tree at a rate of 10 leaves per minute. The rate
is 10, or we can say that lambda = 10 (meaning 10 leaves fall per minute). The leaves do
not fall like clockwork, so the time between leaves falling varies. If the time between leaves
falling can be modeled with an exponential distribution, then the probability that the time
between leaves falling will be less than 5 seconds (which is 5/60 of a minute) would be:

(note: this is an explanation of how pexp() works, you will answer a different question
below)

pexp(5/60, rate=10)

which is about 0.565 (meaning that the probability is a bit higher than 50% that the next
time-span between leaves falling will be less than 5 seconds).
For tasks 7-12, assume that the time interval between customers entering your store can be
modeled using an exponential distribution. You know that you have an average of 4
customers per minute, so the rate is 4, or you can say that lambda = 4 according to Yakir
(2011, p. 79-80).

It is easiest to keep everything in the original units of measurement (minutes), but you can
also translate that to seconds because a rate of “4 customers per minute” is the same as “4
customer per 60 seconds,” and you can divide each number by 4 to get a rate of “1
customer per 15 seconds” or a rate of “1/15 customers per second.”

7) What is the expectation for the time interval between customers entering the store? Be
sure to specify the units of measurement in your answer (see Yakir, 2011, pp. 79-80).
Round to 3 decimal places: ___________________
E(X) = 1/15 = 0.667seconds
8) What is the variance of the the time interval? Be sure to specify the units of
measurement in your answer. Round to 3 decimal places:_________________
Var(X) = 1/4^2 = 1/16 = 0.063 seconds
9) The pexp() function is introduced at the bottom of Yakir, 2011, p. 79, and there are some
tips above. What is the probability that the time interval between customers entering the
store will be less than 15.5 seconds. Be sure to enter values so that everything is in the same
unit of measurement. Be sure to specify the units of measurement in your answer. Round
your answer to 3 decimal places: _________________.
pexp(15.5,1/15) = 0.644 seconds
10) What is the probability that the time interval between customers entering the store will
be between 10.7 seconds and 40.2 seconds (see Yakir (2011, p. 79-80)?________
pexp(40.2,1/15) – pexp(10.7,1/15) = 0.421 seconds
11) The qexp() function in R allows you to enter a probability, and it will tell you the
criterion value (“cutoff point”) that corresponds to that probability value (e.g., if you enter
.05 it tells you the cutoff point below which 5% of the values in the distribution fall).
What value of x would be the criterion value (cut-off point) for the top 5% of time intervals
(Round to 3 decimal places, and include the units of measurement)? _______
1 - qexp(0.05,1/15) = 0.231 seconds
12) Describe in your own words the meaning of the number that the following R command
produces (you are asked to interpret the resulting number so that we understand what that
number means).
pexp(1.2, rate=3) = 0.973 is the probability of selecting 1.2 or lower from an exponential
distribution with a rate of 3.

Information

You have now had practice with the binomial distribution and the exponential distribution.
The approach to solving problems for the normal distribution is similar to that for the
exponential function, but obviously you use different R functions (usually pnorm() or
qnorm()).

For the following three exercises, assume that you have a normally distributed random
variable, called A, with a mean of 7, and a population standard deviation of 3.

13) What is the probability that a randomly selected value from variable A will be greater
than 9 (see Yakir, 2011 p. 88-89, 100)?_______
1 – pnorm(9,7,3) = 0.252
14) What value of variable A would be the cutoff point (criterion value) for identifying the
lowest 4% of values in variable A (use the qnorm function)?____________
qnorm(0.04,7,3) = 1.748
15) What is the probability that a randomly selected value from variable A will be more
than one standard deviation above its mean (there are couple ways to solve this, one way is
to use the standard normal distribution, Yakir, 2011, p. 90-91) ?________________
A=0
z = (0 - 7) / 3 = -7/3