Some Simple Exercise on Probability

1. If we roll a 6-sided die, calculate

a) P(rolling a 1)
b) P(rolling a number bigger than 4)

2. Let's say you have a bag with 20 cherries, 14 sweet and 6 sour. If you pick a cherry at random,
what is the probability that it will be sweet?

3. A standard deck of 52 playing cards consists of four suits (hearts, spades, diamonds and
clubs). Spades and clubs are black while hearts and diamonds are red. Each suit contains
13 cards, each of a different rank: an Ace (which in many games functions as both a low
card and a high card), cards numbered 2 through 10, a Jack, a Queen and a King.

a. Compute the probability of randomly drawing one card from a deck and getting an Ace.
b. Probability that we do not roll a six

c. If you pull a random card from a deck of playing cards, what is the probability it is not a
heart?

4. Suppose we flipped a coin and rolled a die, and wanted to know the probability of getting a
head on the coin and a 6 on the die.

5. Are these events independent?

a) A fair coin is tossed two times. The two events are (1) first toss is a head and (2) second
toss is a head.

b) The two events (1) "It will rain tomorrow in Houston" and (2) "It will rain tomorrow in
Galveston” (a city near Houston).

c) You draw a card from a deck, then draw a second card without replacing the first.

6. In your drawer you have 10 pairs of socks, 6 of which are white, and 7 tee shirts, 3 of which
are white. If you randomly reach in and pull out a pair of socks and a tee shirt, what is the
probability both are white?
 7. Suppose we flipped a coin and rolled a die, and wanted to know the probability of
getting a head on the coin or a 6 on the die. Use concept P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) – P(A
and B)

8. Suppose we draw one card from a standard deck. What is the probability that we get a
Queen or a King? Concept of mutually exclusive. Use concept P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) –
P(A and B)

9. Suppose we draw one card from a standard deck. What is the probability that we get a
red card or a King? Use concept P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) – P(A and B)

10. The table below shows the number of survey subjects who have received and not received a
speeding ticket in the last year, and the color of their car. Find the probability that a randomly
chosen person:

a) Has a red car and got a speeding ticket

b) Has a red car or got a speeding ticket.
Speeding No speeding Total
ticket ticket

Red car 15 135 150

Not red car 45 470 515

Total 60 605 665

Use P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) – P(A and B)

11. What is the probability that two cards drawn at random from a deck of playing cards will
both be aces? (Conditional Probability)

12. Find the probability that a die rolled shows a 6, given that a flipped coin shows a head.
13. The table below shows the number of survey subjects who have received and not received a
speeding ticket in the last year, and the color of their car. Find the probability that a randomly
chosen person:

a) Has a speeding ticket given they have a red car

b) Has a red car given they have a speeding ticket

Speeding No speeding Total

ticket ticket

Red car 15 135 150

Not red car 45 470 515

Total 60 605 665

Use Conditional Probability Concept.

If Events A and B are not independent, then

P(A and B) = P(A) · P(B | A)

14. If you pull 2 cards out of a deck, what is the probability that both are spades?

15. A class tossed coins and recorded 161 heads and 179 tails. What is the experimental
probability of heads? tails?

16. Find the theoretical probability of getting a prime number when you roll a number cube.

17. What is the probability that your birthday is not today?

18. (Smoking and Coffee Drinking)

Coffee No Coffee Total

Smoker 60 40 100

Non-Smoker 115 85 200

Total 175 125 300

What is the probability that a randomly selected person from the sample either smokes or
drinks coffee. Use P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) – P(A and B)

Normal Distribution and Table

19. Florian and his friends love to go to the Oktoberfest. But when they order beer they notice
that there is a chance of less than one liter in most steins that was given. So they want to know
how much percentage steins are expected to be filled with more than one liter of beer. After two
days at the Oktoberfest they calculated that the average filled quantity is 970 ml with a variance
of 2500 ml. It is assumed that the filled quantity Q is normally distributed with
𝑄 ~𝑁(970,2500).
Calculate expected % of the steins having a higher filling quantity than one liter of beer.

o 60%
o 3.76%
o 27.43%
o 37.9%

20. Marie is the best scorer of SV München Laim handball club with 101 goals scored already in
this season. Tomorrow is the last match of the season. Besides becoming the champion, Marie
has another dream: becoming the top scorer of the Bayernoberliga. As all games of the
competitors already took place, Marie knows that she has a good chance to win the golden
handball trophy. Franzi from TSV Milbertshofen leads the scorer list with 105 goals currently.
From analysing matches of last year Marie knows, that she scores 6 goals per match on average
with a variance of 4.

What is the chance that Marie can outpace Franzi and hold the desirable trophy in her hands
tomorrow night?
 a) 30.85%
b) 69.15%
c) 59.87%
d) 40.13%

21. The random variable Z has µ = ______ and  = _____.

22. P(0 < z < 1.53) =

23) P( z > -2.18) =

24) Find the value of zo, such that P( -zo < z < zo) = .92.

25) Find the value of z o, such that P(z < zo) = .3015.

26. The random variable X is normally distributed with mean 80 and standard deviation 12.

a) What is the probability that a value of X chosen at random will be between 65 and 95?

b) What is the probability that a value of X chosen at random will be less than 74?

27. The random variable X is normally distributed with mean 65 and standard deviation 15. Find
xo, such that P(x > xo) = .6738.

28. The scores on a placement test have a mound-shaped distribution with mean 400 and
standard deviation 45.

a) What percentage of people taking this exam will have scores of 310 or greater?
b) What percentage of the people taking this test will have scores between 445 and 490?

29. A test has been devised to measure a student's level of motivation during high school. The
motivation scores on this test are approximately normally distributed with a mean of 25 and a
standard deviation of 6. The higher the score the greater the motivation to do well in school.

a) What percentage of students taking this test will have scores below 10?

b) John is told that 35% of the students taking the test have higher motivation scores than he
does? What was John's score?

30. The average distance in kilometers from a school in Chicago to the closest fast-food
restaurant is 0.60 with a standard deviation of 0.45.

Source: Austin, S. B., Melly, S. J., Sanchez, B. N., Patel, A., Buka, S., & Gortmaker, S.
L. (2005). Clustering of fast-food restaurants around schools: A novel application of
spatial statistics to the study of food environments. American Journal of Public Health,
95, 1575-1581.

31. Express each of the following distances as a z score:

a. A distance of 1.00 kilometer.

b. A distance of 0.20 kilometers.
c. A distance of 1.25 kilometers.
d. A distance of 0.60 kilometers.

32. The addiction scale developed by Gossop and Eysenck was used by mental health
researchers to assess liability to development of a drug dependency among secondary-
school students in West Germany. Higher scores on this scale indicate a greater liability
for drug dependency development. For students who never participated in endurance
sports, the addiction mean and standard deviation were 12.36 and 4.83, respectively. For
students who often participated in endurance sports, the addiction mean and standard
deviation were 9.69 and 4.58, respectively.
 Source: Kirkcaldy, B. D., Shephard, R. J., & Siefen, R. G. 2002. The relationship between
physical activity and self-image and problem behaviour among adolescents. Social
Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 37, 544-550.

33. Express each of the following addiction scores as a z score:

a. An addiction score of 10 for a student who never participated in endurance sports.

b. An addiction score of 10 for a student who often participated in endurance sports.
c. An addiction score of 15 for a student who never participated in endurance sports.
d. An addiction score of 15 for a student who often participated in endurance sports.

34. Using Standard Normal Table, find the proportion of the total area identified with the
following statements:

1. above a z score of 1.50

2. below a z score of 1.50
3. between the mean and a z score of 0.56
4. below a z score of -2.00
5. above a z score of -2.00
6. between the mean and a score of 2.58
7. between z scores of 0 and -1.65

35. To calculate grades in her statistics course, Professor Clark converted the raw scores on all
four exams to z-scores. Each student’s final course grade was then based on his or her highest z
score. Sara’s raw scores are shown below along with the mean and standard deviation for each
of the four exams. On which exam did Sara have the highest z score?

Raw Standard
Score Deviation
Exam Mean

A 50 45 10

B 30 30 10

C 25 20 2

D 25 20 3
36. Megan is working with a distribution of reaction times that is positively skewed. Megan
transforms the reaction times to z scores.

1. Will the distribution of these z scores have an approximately normal curve shape?
2. The mean of these z scores is equal to ___.
3. The standard deviation of these z scores is equal to ___.
4. The variance of these z scores is equal to ___.