Tutorial 2

PROBABILITY & COUNTING RULES

1. Draw Venn diagrams to show whether the following are true:

(a) (B ∩ C ∩ A′ ) ∪ ((B ∪ C) ∩ A) = (C ∩ B) ∪ (A ∩ B ′ ∩ C ′ )
(b) (A ∪ B ∪ C ′ )′ = ((A ∩ C) ∪ (B ∩ C))′ ∩ C
(c) ((A ∩ B) ∩ C ′ )∪((B ∩ C) ∩ A′ )∪((A ∩ C) ∩ B ′ ) = (A ∩ B ∩ C)′ ∩((A ∩ B) ∪ (B ∩ C) ∪ (A ∩ C))

2. Describe the following Venn diagrams in set notation:

(a) (c) (e)

(b) (d) (f)

3. A group of five applicants for a pair of identical jobs consists of three men and two women. The
employer is to select two of the five applicants for the jobs. Let S denote the set of all possible
outcomes for the employer’s selection. Let A denote the subset of outcomes corresponding to the
selection of two men and B the subset corresponding to the selection of at least one woman. List
the outcomes A, B ′ , A ∪ B, A ∩ B, A ∩ B ′ . (Denote the different men and women by M1 , M2 ,
M3 and W1 , W2 , respectively)

4. From a survey of 60 students attending a university, it was found that 9 were living off campus,
36 were undergraduates, and 3 were undergraduates living off campus.

(a) Find the number of these students who were undergraduates, were living off campus, or both.
(b) Find the number of these students who were undergraduates living on campus.
(c) Find the number of these students who were graduate students living on campus

5. Bongani and Sakhi have R7 each. They toss a fair coin as well as a fair die (marked 1 to 6). If the
coin shows “heads”, Bongani pays Sakhi R1 for every dot on the upturned side of the die. If the
coin shows “tails”, Sakhi pays Bongani R1 for every dot on the upturned side of the die. Let X
be the amount (in Rand) which Sakhi has after one trial of the game. What is the sample space
for X?

(a) {x : 1 < x ≤ 13}

(b) {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13}
(c) {±1, ±2, ±3, ±4, ±5, ±6, ±7, ±8, ±9, ±10, ±11, ±12, ±13}
(d) {H, T, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
(e) {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13}

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6. A standard piano keyboard consists of 88 keys and looks like this:

The names of the notes and the frequency of the notes played by white keys (here frequency means
how high or low the sound is) are given above the notes. Low notes are on the left, high on the
right.

(a) Choose a key at random. How would you do this?

(b) Let B be the event “the chosen key is black” and W the event “the chosen key is white”. Are
B and W mutually exclusive? Exhaustive? Equally likely? Give reasons for your answers.
(c) Which key has the median sound frequency?
(d) Let L be the event “the chosen key is middle C or to the left of middle C”. What is L′ ?
Answer in words.
(e) Which is more likely, L or L′ ? Give a reason for your answer.

7. Let A, B and C be events in a sample space S

(a) Use the axioms and theorems to show that

P (A ∪ B ∪ C) = P (A) + P (B) + P (C) − P (A ∩ B) − P (A ∩ C) − P (B ∩ C) + P (A ∩ B ∩ C)
You will need to use the fact that P ((A ∪ B) ∩ C) = P ((A ∩ C) ∪ (B ∩ C))
(b) Hence of otherwise, show that if A, B and C are all pairwise disjoint subsets in the sample
space S. Then P (A′ ∩ B ′ ∩ C ′ ) = 1 − P (A) − P (B) − P (C)
You will need to use the fact that P (A′ ∩ B ′ ∩ C ′ ) = P (A ∪ B ∪ C)′

8. (a) Show that P (A ∪ B ′ ) = 1 − P (B) + P (A ∩ B)

(b) Prove that P (A ∩ B) ≤ P (A) ≤ P (A ∪ B) ≤ (P (A) + P (B)) for any events A and B
(c) If the sample space is S = A ∪ B with P (A) = 0.8 and P (B) = 0.5, find P (A ∩ B)
(d) Let A, B and C be three pairwise mutually exclusive events.
Find P ((A ∪ B) ∩ C) and P (A′ ∪ B ′ )

9. If a person visits their dentist, suppose that the probability that they will have their teeth cleaned
is 0.44, the probability that they will have a cavity filled is 0.24, the probability that they will
have a tooth extracted is 0.21, the probability that they will have teeth cleaned and a cavity filled
is 0.08, the probability that they will have their teeth cleaned and a tooth extracted is 0.11, the
probability that they will have a cavity filled and a tooth extracted is 0.07, and the probability
that they will have their teeth cleaned, a cavity filled and a tooth extracted is 0.03.
What is the probability that a person visiting the dentist will have at least one of these things
done to them?

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10. (a) How many three letter words can be made with a 26 letter alphabet (including all nonsense
words)?
(b) What is the probability that there are no repeated letters in a three letter word?
(c) What is the probability that a three letter word contains 2 vowels (vowels are A E I O U)?

11. (a) How many words (including nonsense words) can be made from the letters
S O U T H E R N?
(b) If the letters are randomly arranged, what is the probability that both the letters
S U N and H E R appear in sequence in the word?

12. Suppose 11 politicians, including President Mandella and President Clinton, line up for a picture.
What is the probability that there are exactly three politicians between Mandella and Clinton?
For philosophical reasons, assume that Mandella never stands to the right of Clinton.

13. There are 7 people in a family; grandfather, grandmother, father, mother and three children. A
photographer has arrived at a family event to take photos of the family.

(a) At first the photographer wishes to take photos of just 3 family members at a time (from the
7 that are there). He says that the order in which they line up for the photo doesn’t matter,
as long as he manages to get all possible combinations of 3 people from the 7. How many
different groupings of 3 people are possible?
(b) The photographer now says that the order in which the 3 people line up for the photo is
important and that a different arrangement of the same people is a different photo. How
many different photo’s are now possible?
(c) The photographer then wants to take a photo with all seven members of the family. He says
that order is important. If this is case, how many different photos are possible?
(d) If the grandfather of the family is to always be in the middle of the line up of family member
for the photo, how many different photo’s are possible?
(e) In how many different ways could a photo be taken of all family members in which the two
youngest children in the family line up next to each other?
(f) If the 7 family members line up randomly, what is the probability that the grandfather ends
up in the middle?
(g) If the 7 family members line up randomly, what is the probability that the two youngest
children are next to each other in the line?

14. Four women and four men wish to sit at an 8-chair round table. If the men and women take the
seats at random, what is the probability that the men and women alternate?

15. What is the probability that a six-digit telephone number has no repeated digits? Do not allow
the number to start with a zero.

16. Suppose 7 students are staying in a hall in a hostel and they are allotted 7 beds. Among them,
Shampie does not want a bed next to Lungelo because Lungelo snores. Then, in how many ways
can you allot the beds?

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17. Sihle is bored in her Statistics class (clearly not STA1106H!!!) and starts to eat Jelly Tots. These
come in five different colours. Sihle takes out one of each colour.

(a) In how many different ways can Sihle arrange these 5 in a straight line on the desk in front
of her so that her favourite colour (red) is in the centre?
(b) Sihle eats these Jelly Tots and takes a handful of five more (variable colours)
i. What is the probability that she has at most 1 green Jelly Tot in this handful?
ii. If in fact she has 2 green and 3 yellow Jelly Tots, in how many different ways can she
arrange these in a line?

18. For what value of n is

(a) (n + 1)3 = (n)4

   
n+1 n
(b) 3 =7
3 2
19. A three digit number is formed from the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The digits can be repeated.
How many ways are there of choosing

(a) The numbers

(b) An even numbers
(c) A number greater than 331
(d) What happens to these counts if the digits cannot be repeated?

20. Each coded item in a catalogue comprises 5 digits from 0 through 9 and the digits can be repeated.
Find the probability of randomly selected a code for which the first digit is greater than 7 and
the last digit is even.

21. In a poker hand of 5 cards drawn randomly from a standard pack of 52 playing cards, what is the
probability of holding

(a) 2 aces and 3 jacks

(b) 3 aces
(c) 4 hearts and 1 club

22. A fleet of nine taxis is to be dispatched to three airports in such a way that three go to airport
A, five go to airport B and one goes to airport C.

(a) In how many distinct ways can this be accomplished?

(b) If exactly one of the taxis is in need of repair, what is the probability that it is dispatched
to airport C?
(c) If exactly three of the taxis are in need of repair, what is the probability that every airport
receives one fo the taxis requiring repairs?

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23. Students attending the University of Cape Town can select from 130 major areas of study. A
students major is identified in the registrar’s records with a two - or - three letter code (for
example, statistics majors are identified by STA, math majors by MS). Some students opt for a
double major and complete the requirements for both of the major areas before graduation. The
registrar was asked to consider assigning these double majors a distinct two - or - three letter code
so that they could be identified through the students system.

(a) What is the maximum number of possible double majors available to University of Cape
Town students
(b) If any two - or - three letter code is available to identify majors or double majors, how many
major codes are available
(c) How many major codes are required to identify students who have either a single major or
a double major
(d) Are there enough major codes available to identify all single and double majors at the
University of Cape Town

24. A local society is conducting a raffle where 50 tickets are to be sold - one per customer. There
are three prizes to be awarded. If the four organizers of the raffle each buy one ticket, what is the
probability that four organizers

(a) Win all of the prizes

(b) Win exactly two of the prizes
(c) Win exactly one of the prizes
(d) Win none of the prizes

25. A study is to be conducted in a hospital to determine the attitudes of nurses towards various
administrative procedures. A sample of 10 nurses is to be selected from a total of the 90 nurses
employed by the hospital.

(a) How many different samples of 10 nurses can be selected?

(b) Twenty of the 90 nurses are male. If 10 nurses are randomly selected from those employed
by the hospital, what is the probability that the sample of ten will include exactly 4 male
(and 6 female) nurses?

26. A student prepares for an exam by studying a list of ten problems . She can solve six of them.
For the exam, the instructor selects five problems at random from the ten on the list given to the
students. What is the probability that the student can solve all five problems on the exam?

27. Show that, for any integer n ≥ 1,

 
n
(a) = 1. Interpret this result.
n
 
n
(b) = 1. Interpret this result.
0
   
n n
(c) = . Interpret this result.
r n−r
     
n+1 n n
28. Prove that = +
k k k−1