Midterm Exam 1 Practice Problems

Problem 1: Call centers today play an important role in managing day-to-day-day business communications with
customers. Call centers must be monitored with a comprehensive set of metrics so that businesses can better
understand the overall performance of those centers. One key metric for measuring overall call center
performance is service level, the percentage of calls answered by a human agent within a specified number of
seconds. The following data for time, in seconds, to answer 50 incoming calls to a financial services call center:
5 5 6 6 6 8 9 9 10 10
10 11 12 12 12 12 13 13 13 14
14 14 14 15 15 15 15 15 16 16
16 16 16 16 17 17 18 18 19 19
19 20 21 22 23 24 24 25 26 28

a. Construct a frequency distribution and a percentage distribution.

b. Construct a cumulative percentage distribution.
c. Construct a histogram.
d. What can you conclude about call center performance if the service level target is set as “80% of calls
answered within 20 seconds”?
a. b. c.) Range = highest – lower 28 – 5 = 23
Width = range ÷ number of classes = 23 ÷ 6 = 3.83 ⇒ round up to 4

Cumulative
Class L Limit U Limit Midpoints Frequency Percentage
Percentage

1 5 9 7 6 12% 12%

2 9 13 11 10 20% 32%

3 13 17 15 18 36% 68%

4 17 21 19 8 16% 84%

5 21 25 23 5 10% 94%

6 25 29 27 3 6% 100%
Frequency

7 11 15 19 23 27
d. 84% of the calls answered are less than 21 seconds. We met the target.

Problem 2: The following set of data is from a sample of n = 5: ( Standard Deviation = 2.92)
74982
a. Compute the mean, and median
b. Compute the range, and coefficient of variation.
c. Compute the Z scores. Are there any outliers?
d. Describe the shape of the data set.

a. Mean = (7+4+9+8+2) ÷ 5 = 6, median =7

b. Range = 9-2 = 7, C.V. = standard deviation ÷ mean =2.92 ÷ 6 = 0.49
c. Z score for any value = (value – mean) ÷ standard deviation. If the Z scores more than 3 or less than -3, we
consider it outliers. For example, (9-6) ÷ 2,92 = 1.03 is NOT outlier.
d. Mean < median, so the data is left skewed.

Problem 3: The following mobile commerce penetration values, the percentage of the country's population
that bought something online via a mobile phone in the past month, for twenty-eight of the world’s
economies:
11 15 19 21 21 23 23 23 23 25 26 26 26 27
28 30 31 33 33 33 36 37 38 40 40 41 47 55
a. Compute the first quartile (Q1), the third quartile (Q3), and the interquartile range.
b. List the five-number summary.
c. Construct a boxplot and describe its shape.

a. b.)Q1 Location =(1× (28+1)) ÷4 =7.25 ⇒ round down to 7

Q2 Location =(2× (28+1)) ÷4 =14.50 ⇒ take the values from positions 14 and 15 then divide by 2
Q3 location =(3× (28+1)) ÷4 =21.75 ⇒ round up to 22

X smallest = 11
Q1 = 23
Q2=(27+28) ÷2= 27.5
Q3 =37
X largest = 55

c. Right skewed
Problem 4: A population of 2-liter bottles of cola is known to have a mean fill-weight of 2.06 liter and a standard
deviation of 0.02 liter. We assume the shape of the population is bell-shaped (symmetric). Describe the
distribution of fill-weights. Is it very likely that a bottle will contain less than 2 liters of cola? (Hint: use the
empirical rule).
99.7%

95.4%

68.3%

2 2.02 2.04 2.06 2.08 2.1 2.12

𝜇

𝜇−𝜎 𝜇+𝜎

𝜇 − 2𝜎 𝜇 + 2𝜎

𝜇 − 3𝜎 𝜇 + 3𝜎

Problem 5: How will marketers change their social media use in the near future? A survey by Social Media
Examiner reported that 76% of B2B marketers (marketers that focus primarily on attracting businesses) plan to
increase their use of LinkedIn, as compared to 52% of B2C marketers (marketers that primarily target
consumers). The survey was based on 1,780 B2B marketers and 3,306 B2C marketers. The following table
summarizes the results:

a. Give an example of a simple event. (marketer who plans to increase use of LinkedIn?))
b. Give an example of a joint event. (marketers who focuses on attracting businesses)
c. What is the complement of a marketer who plans to increase use of LinkedIn?
The complement = (marketer who does not plan to increase use of LinkedIn?)
Problem 6: Referring to the contingency table in Problem 5, if a marketer is selected at random, what is the
probability that
a. he or she plans to increase use of LinkedIn?
b. he or she is a B2C marketer?
c. he or she plans to increase use of LinkedIn or is a B2C marketer?
d. Explain the difference in the results in (b) and (c).
a. P(yes) =3,072/5,086
b. P(B2C) =3,306/5,086
c. P(yes or B2C) = P(yes) + P(B2C) - P(yes and B2C) = (3,072/5,086) + ( 3,306/5,086) – (1,719/5,086)
d. b is simple probability and c is union

Problem 7: Referring to the contingency table in Problem 5.

a. Suppose you know that the marketer is a B2B marketer. What is the probability that he or she plans to increase
use of LinkedIn?
b. Suppose you know that the marketer is a B2C marketer. What is the probability that he or she plans to
increase use of LinkedIn?
c. Are the two events, increase use of LinkedIn and business focus, independent? Explain.
a. P(yes|B2B) =1,353/1,780
b. P(yes|B2C) =1,719/3,306
c. P(yes|B2B) is NOT equal to P(yes), so there are dependent events.

Problem 8: Problem. In a neighborhood, 90% of children were falling sick due to flu and 10% due to measles
and no other disease. The probability of observing rashes for measles is 0.95, and for flu, it is 0.08. If a child
develops rashes, find the child’s probability of having flu.

P(F) = 0.9
P(M) = 0.1
P(R|M) = 0.95
P(R|F) = 0.08

P(F|R) = { P(R|F) × P(F)} ÷{ (P(R|F) × P(F)) + (P(R|M) × P(M)) } = { 0.08 × 0.9} ÷{ (0.08 × 0.0) + (0.95 × 0.1) }

Problem 9: A gourmet bakery offers three types of pastries: Sambousa, Farmosa, and Manto. The bakery is
receiving customer comments about the freshness of their pastries. They want to determine the probability that
a comment about lack of freshness is referring to pastry Manto, given the comment.
Events:
C: Customer comment about lack of freshness.
S: The comment is about pastry Sambousa.
F: The comment is about pastry Farmosa.
M: The comment is about pastry Manto.

From past data, they have observed the following:

 • The prior probabilities of receiving a comment about each type of pastry are P(S) = 30%, P(F) = 50%, and
P(M) = 20%.
• If the comment is about pastry Sambousa, the probability of receiving a comment about lack of freshness
is P(C|S) = 60%.
• If the comment is about pastry Farmosa, the probability of receiving a comment about lack of freshness
is P(C|F) = 80%.
• If the comment is about pastry Manto, the probability of receiving a comment about lack of freshness is
P(C|M) = 70%.

Now, the bakery wants to find P(M|C), given that a comment about lack of freshness is received. the probability
that a comment is referring to pastry Manto is?

P(M|C) = { P(C|M) × P(M)} ÷{ P(C|M) × P(M) + (P(C|S) × P(S)) + (P(C|F) × P(F)) } =

{ 0.7 × 0.2} ÷{ (0.7 × 0.2) + (0.6 × 0.3) + (0.8 × 0.5) }