Assignment 3: Prbability Theory

Question 1. A coin is thrown 3 times . What is the probability that atleast one head is obtained? Ans. 7/8
Question 2. Find the probability of getting a numbered card when a card is drawn from the pack of 52 cards.
Ans. 9/13
Question 3. A bag contains 8 white and 4 red balls. Five balls are drawn at random. What is the probability that
2 of them are red and 3 white? Ans. 0.424
Question 4. A bag contains 25 balls numbered 1 through 25. Suppose an odd number is considered a ”success”.
Two balls are drawn from the bag with replacement. Find the probability of getting (a) two successes Ans. 169/625
(b) exactly one success Ans. 312/625 (c) at least one success Ans. 481/625 (d) no successes Ans. 144/615
Question 5. What is the probability of getting a sum of 7 when two dice are thrown? Ans. 1/6
Question 6. Two cards are drawn from the pack of 52 cards. Find the probability that both are diamonds or both
are kings.
Question 7. Consider the experiment of tossing a coin twice.
a. List the experimental outcomes.
b. Define a random variable that represents the number of heads occurring on the two tosses.
c. Show what value the random variable would assume for each of the experimental outcomes.
d. Is this random variable discrete or continuous?
Question 8. Consider the experiment of a worker assembling a product.
a. Define a random variable that represents the time in minutes required to assemble the product.
b. what values may the random variable assume?
c. Is the random variable discrete or continuous?
Question 9. Three students scheduled interviews for summer employment at the Alliance University. In each
case the interview results in either an offer for a position or no offer. Experimental outcomes are defined in terms
of the results of the three interviews.
a. List the experimental outcomes.
b. Define a random variable that represents the number of offers made. Is the random variable continuous?
c. Show the value of the random variable for each of the experimental outcomes.
Question 10. In January the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent (U.S. Department of Labor website,
February 10, 2012). The Census Bureau includes nine states in the Northeast region. Assume that the random
variable of interest is the number of Northeastern states with an unemployment rate in January that was less than
8.3 percent. what values may this random variable take?
Question 11. An increasing number of consumers believe they have to look out for themselves in the marketplace.
According to a survey conducted by the Yankelovich Partners for USA WEEKEND magazine, 60900 telephone
number for information about some product. Suppose a random sample of 25 consumers is contacted and inter-
viewed about their buying habits.
a. What is the probability that 15 or more of these consumers have called an 800 or 900 telephone number for
information about some product? Ans. 0.585
b. What is the probability that more than 20 of these consumers have called an 800 or 900 telephone number
for information about some product? Ans. 0.009
c. What is the probability that fewer than 10 of these consumers have called an 800 or 900 telephone number
for information about some product? Ans. 0.013
Question 12. for its Music 360 survey, Nielsen Co. asked teenagers and adults how each group has listened to
music in the past 12 months. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. teenagers under the age of 18 say they use google Inc.’s
video-sharing site to listen to music and 35 percent of the teenagers said they use Pandora Media Inc.’s custom
online radio service (the wall street Journal, August 14, 2012). Suppose 10 teenagers are selected randomly to be
interviewed about how they listen to music.
a. Is randomly selecting 10 teenagers and asking whether or not they use Pandora Media Inc.’s online service
a binomial experiment? Ans. Yes
b. what is the probability that none of the 10 teenagers use Pandora Media Inc.’s online radio service? Ans.
0.0135
c. what is the probability that 4 of the 10 teenagers use Pandora Media Inc.’s online radio service? Ans.
0.2377
d. what is the probability that at least 2 of the 10 teenagers use Pandora Media Inc.’s online radio service?
Ans. 0.0725

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Question 13. Military radar and missile detection systems are designed to warn a country of an enemy attack.
A reliability question is whether a detection system will be able to identify an attack and issue a warning. Assume
that a particular detection system has a .90 probability of detecting a missile attack. Use the binomial probability
distribution to answer the following questions.
a. what is the probability that a single detection system will detect an attack? Ans 0.90
b. If two detection systems are installed in the same area and operate independently, what is the probability
that at least one of the systems will detect the attack? Ans 0.99
c. If three systems are installed, what is the probability that at least one of the systems will detect the attack?
Ans. 0.999
d. would you recommend that multiple detection systems be used? Explain.
Question 14. The Wall Street Journal reported some interesting statistics on the job market. One statistic is
that 40 percent of all workers say they would change jobs for “slightly higher pay.” In addition, 88 percent of
companies say that there is a shortage of qualified job candidates. Suppose 16 workers are randomly selected and
asked if they would change jobs for “slightly higher pay.”
a. What is the probability that nine or more say yes?
b. What is the probability that three, four, five, or six say yes?
c. If 13 companies are contacted, what is the probability that exactly 10 say there is a shortage of qualified job
candidates?
d. If 13 companies are contacted, what is the probability that all of the companies say there is a shortage of
qualified job candidates?
e. If 13 companies are contacted, what is the expected number of companies that would say there is a shortage
of qualified job candidates?
Question 15. In 2011, New York City had a total of 11,232 motor vehicle accidents that occurred on Monday
through Friday between the hours of 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. (New York State Department of Motor Vehicles website,
October 24, 2012). This corresponds to mean of 14.4 accidents per hour.
a. Compute the probability of no accidents in a 15-minute period. Ans. 0.0273
b. Compute the probability of at least one accident in a 15-minute period. Ans. 0.9727
c. Compute the probability of four or more accidents in a 15-minute period. Ans. 0.4847
Question 16. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the state of Colorado
averages 18 tornadoes every June (NOAA website, November 8, 2012). (note: There are 30 days in June.)
a. Compute the mean number of tornadoes per day. Ans. 0.6
b. Compute the probability of no tornadoes during a day. Ans. 0.5488
c. Compute the probability of exactly one tornado during a day. Ans. 0.3293
d. Compute the probability of more than one tornado during a day. Ans. 0.1219
Question 17. During the period of time that a local university takes phone-in registrations, calls come in at the
rate of one every two minutes.
a. What is the expected number of calls in one hour?
b. What is the probability of three calls in five minutes?
c. What is the probability of no calls in a five-minute period?
Question 18. A restaurant manager is interested in taking a more statistical approach to predicting customer
load. She begins the process by gathering data. One of the restaurant hosts or hostesses is assigned to count
customers every five minutes from 7 P.M. until 8 P.M. every Saturday night for three weeks. The data are shown
here. After the data are gathered, the manager computes lambda using the data from all three weeks as one data
set as a basis for probability analysis. What value of lambda did she find? [Ans. λ = 3.5] Assume that these
customers randomly arrive and that the arrivals are Poisson distributed. Use the value of lambda computed by
the manager and help the manager calculate the probabilities in parts (a) through (e) for any given five-minute
interval between 7 P.M. and 8 P.M. on Saturday night.
Week 1: 3 6 4 6 2 3 1 5 1 0 3 3
Week 2: 1 2 4 0 2 6 5 4 2 5 3 4
Week 3: 5 3 5 3 5 4 7 3 4 8 1 3
a. What is the probability that no customers arrive during any given five-minute interval? Ans. 0.0302
b. What is the probability that six or more customers arrive during any given five-minute interval? Ans.
0.1424
c. What is the probability that during a 10-minute interval fewer than four customers arrive? Ans. 0.0817
d. What is the probability that between three and six (inclusive) customers arrive in any 10-minute interval?
Ans. 0.42
e. What is the probability that exactly eight customers arrive in any 15-minute interval? Ans. 0.1009

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 Assignment 4
Question 19. Given that Z is a standard normal random variable, compute the following probabilities.
a) P (−1.98 ≤ Z ≤ 0.49) Ans. 0.6640 b) P (0.52 ≤ Z ≤ 1.22) Ans. 0.1903 c) P (−1.75 ≤ Z ≤ −1.04) Ans. 0.1091
Question 20. Determine the probabilities for the following normal distribution problems.
a) µ = 604, σ = 56.8, X ≤ 635 Ans. 0.7088, b) µ = 48, σ = 12, x < 20 Ans. 0.0099,
c) µ = 111, σ = 33.8, 100 ≤ x < 150, Ans. 0.5042 d) µ = 264, σ = 10.9, 250 < x < 255, Ans. 0.1030
e) µ = 37, σ = 4.35, x > 35, Ans. 0.6772 f ) µ = 156, σ = 11.4, x ≥ 170, Ans. 0.1093
Question 21. Tompkins Associates reports that the mean clear height for a Class A warehouse in the United
States is 22 feet. Suppose clear heights are normally distributed and that the standard deviation is 4 feet. A Class
A warehouse in the United States is randomly selected.
a. What is the probability that the clear height is greater than 17 feet? Ans. 0.8944
b. What is the probability that the clear height is less than 13 feet? Ans. 0.0122
c. What is the probability that the clear height is between 25 and 31 feet? Ans. 0.2144
Question 22. Suppose you are working with a data set X that is normally distributed, with a mean of 200 and
a standard deviation of 47. Determine the value of X from the following information. a. 60% of the values are
greater than X. Ans 188.25 b. X is less than 17% of the values. Ans. 244.65 c. 22% of the values are less than
X. Ans. 163.81 d. X is greater than 55% of the values. Ans. 206.11
Question 23. Data accumulated by the National Climatic Data Center shows that the average wind speed in miles
per hour for St. Louis, Missouri, is 9.7. Suppose wind speed measurements are normally distributed for a given
geographic location. If 22.45% of the time the wind speed measurements are more than 11.6 miles per hour, what
is the standard deviation of wind speed in St. Louis? Ans. 2.5
Question 24. A population has a mean of 200 and a standard deviation of 50. Suppose a sample of size 100 is
selected and X̄ is used to estimate µ.
a. What is the probability that the sample mean will be within ±5 of the population mean? Ans. 0.6826
b. What is the probability that the sample mean will be within ±10 of the population mean? Ans. 0.9544
Question 25. Barron’s reported that the average number of weeks an individual is unemployed is 17.5 weeks.
Assume that for the population of all unemployed individuals the population mean length of unemployment is 17.5
weeks and that the population standard deviation is 4 weeks. Suppose you would like to select a sample of 50
unemployed individuals for a follow-up study.
a. Show the sampling distribution of X̄, the sample mean average for a sample of 50 unemployed individuals.
Ans. E(X̄) = 17.5, S = 0.57
b. What is the probability that a simple random sample of 50 unemployed individuals will provide a sample
mean within 1 week of the population mean? Ans. 0.9198
c. What is the probability that a simple random sample of 50 unemployed individuals will provide a sample
mean within 1/2 week of the population mean? Ans. 0.6212
Question 26. Costs are rising for all kinds of medical care. The mean monthly rent at assisted-living facilities
was reported to have increased 17% over the last five years to $3486 (the Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2012).
Assume this cost estimate is based on a sample of 120 facilities and, from past studies, it can be assumed that the
population standard deviation is σ = $650. a. Develop a 90% confidence interval estimate of the population mean
monthly rent. Ans. $3388 to $3584
b. Develop a 95% confidence interval estimate of the population mean monthly rent. Ans. $3370 to $3602
c. Develop a 99% confidence interval estimate of the population mean monthly rent. Ans. $3333 to $3639
d. What happens to the width of the confidence interval as the confidence level is increased? Does this seem
reasonable? Explain Ans. Width increases as confidence level increases
Question 27. Studies show that massage therapy has a variety of health benefits and it is not too expensive (the
Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2012). A sample of 10 typical one-hour massage therapy sessions showed an
average charge of $59. The population standard deviation for a one-hour session is σ = $5.50.
a. What assumptions about the population should we be willing to make if a margin of error is desired?
b. Using 95% confidence, construct the confidence interval for population mean.
Question 28. Sales personnel for Skillings Distributors submit weekly reports listing the customer contacts made
during the week. A sample of 15 weekly reports showed a sample mean of 19.5 customer contacts per week. The
sample standard deviation was 5.2. Provide 90% and 95% confidence intervals for the population mean number
of weekly customer contacts for the sales personnel. Assume that the population is normally distributed.

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Question 29. The variance in drug weights is critical in the pharmaceutical industry. for a specific drug, with
weights measured in grams, a sample of 18 units provided a sample variance of S 2 = 0.36. Construct a 90%
confidence interval estimate of the population variance for the weight of this drug. Ans. 0.22 to 0.71

Question 30. a Fortune study found that the variance in the number of vehicles owned or leased by subscribers
to Fortune magazine is .94. assume a sample of 12 subscribers to another magazine provided the following data
on the number of vehicles owned or leased: 2, 1, 2, 0, 3, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 0, and 1.
a. Compute the sample variance in the number of vehicles owned or leased by the 12 subscribers.
b. Construct a 95% confidence interval estimate of the population variance.

Some questions related to Hypothesis tests.

Question 31. A Telecom service provider claims that individual customers pay on an average 400 rs. per month
with standard deviation of 25 rs. A random sample of 50 customers bills during a given month is taken with a
mean of 250 and standard deviation of 15. What to say with respect to the claim made by the service provider?

Question 32. It is claimed that the mean of the population is 67 at 5% level of significance. Mean obtained from
a random sample of size 100 is 64 with SD 3. Validate the claim.

Question 33. An auto-mobile tyre manufacturer claims that the average life of a particular grade of tyre is more
than 20,000 km. A random sample of 16 tyres is having mean 22,000 km with a standard deviation of 5000 km.
Validate the claim of the manufacturer at 5% LoS.

Question 34. A professor wants to knowif her introductory statistics class has a good grasp of baic math. Six
students are chosen at random form the calll an given a math proficiency test. The professor wants the class to
be able to score above 70 on the test. The six students get the following scores: 62, 92, 75, 68, 83, 95. Can the
professor have 90% confidence that the mean score for the class on the test would be above 70.

Question 35. An automatic cutter machine must cut steel strips of 1200 mm lenght. From a preliminary
data, we checked that the lenghts of the pieces produced by the machine can be considered as normal ran-
dom variables. We want to make sure that the machine is set currectly. Therefore 16 pieces of the prod-
ucts are randomly selected and weight. The figures were in mm: 1193, 1196, 1198, 1195, 1198, 1199, 1204, 1193,
1203, 1201, 1196, 1200, 1191, 1196, 1198, 1191 Examine wether there is any significant deviation from the required
size

Question 36. A forester wants to control a dense understory of striped maple that is interfering with desirable
hardwood regeneration using a mist blower to apply an herbicide treatment. She wants to make sure that treatment
has a consistent application rate, in other words, low variability not exceeding 0.25 gal./acre (0.06 gal.2 ). She
collects sample data (n = 11) on this type of mist blower and gets a sample variance of 0.064 gal.2 Using a 5%
level of significance, test the claim that the variance is significantly greater than 0.06 gal.2

Question 37. With individual lines at its various windows, a post office finds that the standard deviation for
normally distributed waiting times for customers on Friday afternoon is 7.2 minutes. The post office experiments
with a single, main waiting line and finds that for a random sample of 25 customers, the waiting times for
customers have a standard deviation of 3.5 minutes.
With a significance level of 5%, test the claim that a single line causes lower variation among waiting times
(shorter waiting times) for customers.