Estadı́stica I

Exercises Chapter 4
Academic year 2011/12

Remark: All along this chapter, A stands for the complimentary set of A.

1. An urn contains 15 balls numbered from 2 to 16. One ball is drawn at random and its number is
reported.

(a) Define the following events by listing corresponding basic outcomes:

A ‘The number is even’ B ‘The number is odd’
C ‘The number is a prime number’
D ‘The number is a prime number less than 9’
(b) What is the relationship between A and B? Between C and D?
(c) Define A ∪ B and A ∩ B.



2. Assume that P (A ∩ B) = 0.2, P B = 0.7 and P A ∩ B = 0.5. Calculate P (A ∩ B) and P (A).



3. Assume that P (A) = 0.5, P B = 0.6 and P A ∩ B = 0.25.
(a) Are A and B independent events?
(b) Compute P (A ∪ B) and P (A|B).

4. There are 85 topics covered by an exam. Three topics are selected at random. If a student studied
35 of the 85 topics, what is the probability that she/he studied at least one of the selected topics?
5. In a survey for a TV channel, 2500 people were asked whether they watched a political debate
shown by the channel, and whether they watched a movie shown by the channel. Both programs
were aired during different times of day. 2100 of the sampled people watched the movie, 1500 people
watched the political debate, and 350 people did not see any of the two. If we choose one of the
surveyed people at random:

(a) What is the probability that he/she watched both the movie and the debate?
(b) What is the probability that he/she watched the movie given that he/she watched the debate?
(c) What is the probability that he/she watched the debate given that he/she watched the movie?

6. We have two urns: the first one contains 3 red balls, 3 white and 4 black; the second urn contains
4 red balls, 3 white and 1 black. We choose one urn at random and draw one ball.

(a) What is the probability that the ball is white?

(b) Assuming that the selected ball is white, what is the probability the the ball came from the
first urn?

7. There are two bags. In bag A, there are 3 white balls and 7 red. In bag B, there are 6 white balls
and 2 red. We draw one ball from bag A and put it in bag B. We shake bag B and select one ball
from it.

(a) What is the probability that the ball drawn from bag B is white?
(b) What is the probability that on both draws we got a white ball?
(c) What is the probability that the ball drawn from bag B is white, given that the ball drawn
from bag A was white.

8. We roll 3 dice and report the number of fives we get.

(a) Find the probability distribution of the random variable considered.

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 (b) Find its mean and standard deviation.
9. In each of the following situations, say if the variable of interest can be represented by a binomial
random variable, and if that’s the case, identify the parameters n and p of the distribution:

(a) We roll a die 100 times and count the number of 1’s.
(b) We deal one card from a deck of 52 cards and check if it is an ace. Without putting the card
back, we draw again and check if it is an ace. We repeat this process of drawing without
replacement 10 times, and count the number of aces.

10. We know that 65% of the students of a certain high school will continue their education at a
university level. If we randomly select eight students, calculate the probability that:

(a) At least one of them will go to university.

(b) More than six of them will go to university.
How many of them do you expect to go to university? Give-or-take? (Hint: Calculate the
expectation and standard deviation of the binomial random variable.)

11. The daily probability of winning a lottery (Monday to Friday) is 0.1. We buy a lottery ticket on
five days of a week and we wish to know what is the probability of winning 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times.

(a) Tabulate the six probabilities. What kind of distribution do we have here?
(b) Calculate the mean and standard deviation of the distribution from the previous part.

12. In each of the following situations, say if the variable of interest can be represented by a binomial
random variable, and if that’s the case, identify the parameters n and p of the distribution:

(a) 2% of oranges that are shipped within Spain are rotten. In a supermarket, oranges come in
bags of 10. We select one bag at random and count the number of rotten oranges.
(b) In a box there are 2 red balls, 3 are white and 2 are green. We draw one ball at random, write
down its colour and put it back in the box. We repeat this scheme 10 times and count the
number of white balls.

13. In each of the following situations, say if the variable of interest can be represented by a binomial
random variable, and if that’s the case, identify the parameters n and p of the distribution:

(a) 3% of all items produced by a factory are defective. The items come in 20-packs. We count
the number of defective items in a randomly selected pack.
(b) In a box there are 2 red balls, 3 are white and 2 are green. We select one ball at random, report
its color and return it to the box. We repeat this process 10 times and count the number of
balls of each colour.

14. A telephone company receives 5 calls per minute. If the distribution of the number of calls per
minute is Poisson, calculate the probability of receiving less than four calls in a given minute.
15. On a tree plantation, Christmas trees are grown in rows of 300. On average, 6 trees per row are not
suitable for sale. Assume that the distribution of the number of trees suitable for sale is Poisson.

(a) Calculate the probability of finding 2 tress that are not suitable for sale within one row.
(b) Compute the probability of finding 2 trees that are not suitable for sale within one half of a
row.

16. The following figure shows a density function of a continuous rv X.

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 (a) Calculate the probability that X is less than 1 using the graph.
(b) Calculate the probability that X is greater than 0.5 and less than 3/2 using the graph.
(c) Find the mean of X.
(d) Find the variance of X.

17. An economist estimated that the sales and costs of some products associated with an index I are
given by:
I+5 25−I
Costs: C = 7 , Sales: V = 4 .

If I is a rv (call it X) with the density function

 x
fX (x) = 108 , if 3 ≤ x ≤ 15
0, otherwise.

(a) Find the distribution function of I.

(b) Find the mean and SDs of the costs, sales and earnings.
(c) Calculate the probability that that the earnings are negative.
18. Find the following probabilities, where Z follows a standard normal distribution, N (0, 1):

(a) P (Z > −0.2) .

(b) P (Z > 1.27) .
(c) P (−0.52 < Z < 1.03) .

19. The cholesterol level in a healthy adult follows a N (µ = 192, σ = 12) distribution. Compute the
probability that a healthy adult has a cholesterol level:

(a) Above 200.

(b) Between 180 and 220.

20. 7% of trousers manufactured by a certain company are defective. The trousers come in 80-packs.
What is the probability that a randomly selected pack contains more than 10 defective trousers?
21. On a multiple-choice test there are 100 questions with two possible answers: true or false. If a
student randomly guesses (all) the answers, what is the probability that he/she will get more than
60 questions right?
22. A rv X has the following density

(1 + x2 )/12, if x ∈ (0, 3),


f (x) =
0, if x ∈
/ (0, 3).

Calculate:
(a) distribution function of X,

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 (b) the probabilities P (1 < X < 2) and P (X < 1),
(c) the expectation and variance of X,
(d) the probability P (|X − E[X]| ≥ 1) and the bound you would obtain from the Chebychev’s
rule.
23. Consider a uniformly distributed rv X with density:

1/4, x = 1, 2, 3, 4,
P (X = x) =
0, otherwise.

Let X1 , . . . , Xn be i.i.d. with the same distribution that X, and consider another rv
n
1X
Y = Xi .
n i=1

Find P (2.4 < Y < 2.8) when n = 36.

24. Given the following statements, proof those which are true or find a counterexamples for those
which are false.

(a) For any rv X, we have that E[X 2 ] ≥ E[X]2 .

(b) For any continuous rv X with density function f (x) > 0, x ∈ [0, 1], and f (x) = 0, x ∈
/ [0, 1],
we have that E[X] > 1.
(c) Given two events A and B from a sample space Ω, if A and B are mutually exclusive then
they are independent.
25. Given a random experiment with sample space Ω, let A, B ⊂ Ω be two events such that P (A) +
P (B) = 1. Which of the following is true:

(a) A ∩ B = ∅.
(b) A ∪ B = Ω.
(c) A and B are independent events.
(d) None is true.

26. Let X be a random variable with expectation E(X) = −2 and variance V ar(X) = 1. Then:

(a) E(X 2 ) = 5.
(b) E(X 2 ) = −4.
(c) E(X 2 ) = 3.
(d) E(X 2 ) = 4.

27. The following figure contains the cumulative distribution function of a continuous random variable
X. the probability that X is greater than 2 is:

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 (a) 0.25.
(b) 0.5.
(c) less than 0.25.
(d) more than 0.5.

28. Given a random experiment with sample space Ω, let A, B ⊂ Ω be two events and A and B the
corresponding complementary events. Which one of the following is true:

(a) P (A|B) = 1 − P (A|B).

(b) P (A|B) = 1 − P (A|B).
(c) P (B|A) = 1 − P (B|A).
(d) P (B|A) = 1 − P (B|A).

29. The following figure contains a representation of a certain function. Which of the following is true:

(a) None is true.

(b) It is the probability density function of a continuous random variable.
(c) It is the cumulative distribution function of a continuous random variable.
(d) It is the cumulative distribution function of a discrete random variable.

30. Consider a random variable whose probability density function is equal to a positive constant in
the [0, 2) interval and null elsewhere. Which of the following is true:

(a) The positive constant is equal to 2/3.

(b) It is not possible to deduce the value of the constant.
(c) Since the probability density function is not continuous, the cumulative distribution function
is not continuous.
(d) It is a random variable whose cumulative distribution function is equal to x/2 if x ∈ [0, 2).