THE COPPERBELT UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

BS242

TUTORIAL SHEET TWO (2018-2019 ACADEMIC YEAR)

QUESTION ONE

a. A problem in statistics is given to five students A, B, C, D, and E. Their chances of solving

1 1 1 1 1
it are 6, 5 , 4 , 3 ,and 2 respectively. What is the probability that the problem will be

solved?
b. The probability that event A occurs is 𝑃(𝐴) = 0.4. B is an event independent of A and
the probability of the union of A and B is 𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵) = 0.7. Find 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵).
c. Let events A and B be two events such that 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) = 𝑃(𝐴)𝑃(𝐵) 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑃(𝐵) ≠ 0.
What is the relation between events A and B? Show that it is also the case that
𝑃( 𝐴/𝐵) = 𝑃(𝐴).

d. If events A and B are independent prove that the event A and the complementary event
𝐵 ′ are also independent.
e. Let A and B be events. Prove that 𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵) = 𝑃(𝐴) + 𝑃(𝐵) − 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵).
f. Show that the probability of the union of events A and B can be written as follows:
𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵) = 𝑃(𝐴) + 𝑃(𝐵)[1 − 𝑃(𝐴/𝐵)] .

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 QUESTION TWO
a. A coin is tossed three times. Find the probability of getting at least two heads.
b. The two events A and B are independent and are such that
𝑃(𝐴) = 𝑥, 𝑃(𝐵) = 𝑥 + 0.2 and 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) = 0.15.
Find (i) 𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵) (ii) 𝑃(𝐴′ /𝐵 ′ )
c. The probability that I am late for work is 0.05. Find the probability that, on two
consecutive mornings, I am late for work once.
d. In a restaurant 40% of customers choose steak for their main course. If a customer
chooses steak, the probability that he will choose ice cream to follow is 0.6. If he does
not have steak, the probability that he will choose ice cream is 0.3. Find the probability
that a customer picked at random will choose
(i) steak and ice cream,
(ii) ice cream.

QUESTION THREE

a. If the letters of the word MINIMUM are arranged in a line at random, what is the
probability that the arrangement begins with MMM?

b. In case, find n: (a) n P4 = 30 nC4 (b) n

C n − 2 = 10
n  n 
c. Verify that   =   .
r  n − r
d. From a group of 3 accountants, 4 doctors and 5 lawyers a sub-committee of four people
is selected at random. Find the probability that the sub-committee will consist of 2
accountants and 2 lawyers.
e. Evaluate the following number of combinations:
7 5
C0 C5
i) 6C4 ii) 5
C1 iii) iv)
f. Evaluate:

5 14
i) 8
P3 ii) P2 iii) P2 iv) 4 P4

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 QUESTION FOUR
a. A manufacturer obtains radios from three different subcontractors: 20% from A, 40%
from B, and 40% from C. The defective rates for these subcontractors are 1%, 3%, and
2% respectively. If a defective radio is returned by a customer, what is the probability
that it came from contractor B?
b. At Mulungushi University, in quest for satisfactory textbook, the statistics Dept. has
tried a different text during each of three terms of an academic year. During the first
term, 500 students used the text by Professor Jane; during the second term, 300
students used the text by Professor Peter; during the third term, 200 used the text by
Professor Anthony. A Survey at the end of each term showed that 200 students were
satisfied with Jane’s text, 160 were satisfied with Peter’s text and 150 were satisfied
with Anthony’s text. If a student who took statistics in during one of these terms is
selected at random and admits to having been satisfied with the text, is the student
most likely used the book by Jane, Peter or Anthony? Who is the least likely Author?
c. The number of calls received at a telephone centre follows a Poisson distribution where
probability of receiving no call on a particular day is 0.1353. What is the probability of
receiving at least 4 calls in 2 days?
d. A firm produces a product and finds that 10% of its output is defective. A small sample
of five items is taken from the production line. Find the probability of getting:
i) two defectives
ii) five defectives
iii) more than two defectives
iv) less than three defectives.

e. The discrete random variable X has the following probability distribution.

𝑥 −3 0 3 6 9
𝑃(𝑋 = 𝑥) 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.1 𝑎
Find:

i. the value of 𝑎
ii. the variance of the random variable X, Var(X).
iii. F(3).
iv. 𝐸(2𝑋 + 9).
v. 𝑉𝑎𝑟(6𝑋 − 7).

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 QUESTION FIVE

a. Items produced from a machine are known to be 1% defective. If the items are boxed
into lots of 200, what is the probability of finding that a single box has 3 or more
defectives?
b. Given that a random variable X follows a Poisson distribution with average number of
occurrences 𝜇. Prove that its expectation is 𝐸(𝑋) = 𝜇.
𝑒 −𝜇 𝜇 𝑥
c. Show that the formula 𝑃(𝑋 = 𝑥) = is indeed for a probability distribution.
𝑥!
d. Given the expectation algebra below show by using appropriate variance definition that:
𝑣𝑎𝑟(𝑎𝑋 + 𝑏) = 𝑎2 𝑣𝑎𝑟(𝑋).
e. The discrete random variable X has probability function
1 𝑥
(2) , 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑥 = 1,2,3,4,5.
𝑃(𝑋 = 𝑥) = { 𝑐 , 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑥 = 6
0, 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒
where c is a constant.
Determine the value of c and the mean and variance of the discrete random X.
f. Cars arrive at a particular petrol station at an average rate of one per minute.
Use a Poisson distribution to calculate the probability that:
i. in a particular minute no cars arrive at the petrol station
ii. in a particular ten-minute interval less than four cars arrive at the petrol station.
iii. in a particular two-minute interval more than four cars arrive at the petrol station.

g. Given the probability density function of the uniform distribution,

1
𝑓(𝑥) = { 𝑏 − 𝑎 , 𝑎 ≤ 𝑥 ≤ 𝑏
0, 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒
(𝑏−𝑎)2
Show that the variance is given by 𝑎𝑟(𝑋) = .
12

h. A continuous random variable X has P.D.F. 𝑓(𝑥) = 𝑘𝑥 2 𝑓𝑜𝑟 0 ≤ 𝑥 ≤ 4. Find:

i) the value of the constant k

ii) 𝑃(1 ≤ 𝑋 ≤ 3)

iii) the variance of X.

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 QUESTION SIX

a) If one-third of the employees of a certain company bring their lunches, find the probabilities
that among 4 such employees

i. exactly one bring their lunches;

ii. none of them bring their lunches;
iii. more than one of them bring their lunches.

b) The number of cars passing through a certain toll gate at a certain bridge follows a Poisson
distribution with an average of 2 per 5 minutes interval of time. Find the probability

i. of no car passing through this toll gate during a given 5-minute period.
ii. of more than 4 cars passing through the toll gate during a given 10-minute period.
iii. that between 15 and 25 cars pass through during a given one-hour period.
iv. at most 10 cars pass through during a given 15-minute period.

QUESTION SEVEN

a) A committee of 5 people is to be formed from a group of 10 women and 6 men. Find the
probability that the committee has:

i. 3 women and 2 men.

ii. 4 women and 1 man.
iii. 5 women.
iv. At least 3 women.

b) In a school, 60% of the pupils have access to internet at home. A group of 8 students is
chosen at random. Find the probability that

i. exactly 5 have access to the internet.

ii. at least 6 students have access to the internet.

c) The grades of a group of 1000 students in an exam are normally distributed with a mean of 70
and standard deviation of 10. A student from the group is selected randomly.

i. Find the probability that the student’s grade is greater than 80.
ii. Find the probability that the student’s grade is less than 50.
iii. Find the probability that the student’s grade is between 50 and 80.
iv. Approximately, how many students have grades greater than 80?

END