QUESTION BANK

CHAPTER – PROBABILITY
1. Two dice are thrown. If it is known that the sum of numbers on the dice was less than 6, find the
probability of getting a sum 3.
2. A die is thrown and a card is selected at random from a deck of playing 52 cards. Find the probability
of getting an even number on the die and a spade card.
3. 𝐴 speaks truth 80% cases and 𝐵 speaks truth in 90% cases. In what percentage of cases are they likely
to agree with each other in stating the same fact?
4. If 𝐴 and 𝐵 are two independent events, prove that 𝐴′ and 𝐵 are also independent.
5. One bag contains 3 red and 5 black balls. Another bag contains 6 red and 4 black balls. A ball is
transferred from first bag to second bag. Find the probability that the ball drawn is red.
6. If 𝑃(𝐴) = 0.6, 𝑃(𝐵) = 0.5 and 𝑃(𝐴|𝐵) = 0.3, then find 𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵).
7. If 𝐴 and 𝐵 are two independent events, then prove that the probability of occurrence of at least one
of 𝐴 and 𝐵 is given by 1 = 𝑃(𝐴′ )𝑃(𝐵′).
8. 𝐴 and 𝐵 throw a pair of dice alternately. 𝐴 wins the game if he gets a total of 9 and 𝐵 wins if he gets
a total of 7. If 𝐴 starts the game, find the probability of winning the game by 𝐵.
9. A bag contains (2𝑛 + 1) coins. It is known that (𝑛 − 1) of these coins have a head on both sides,
whereas the rest of the coins are fair. A coin is picked up at random from the bag and is tossed. If the
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probability that the toss results in head is 42, determine the value of 𝑛.
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10. Probability of solving specific problem independently by 𝐴 and 𝐵 are 2 and 3 respectively. If both try
to solve the problem, independently, then find the probability that
i) The problem is solved
ii) Exactly one of them solved the problem.
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11. If 𝐴 and 𝐵 are two independent events such that 𝑃(𝐴̅ ∩ 𝐵) = and 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵̅ ) = , then find 𝑃(𝐴)
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and 𝑃(𝐵).
12. There are three coins, one is two headed coin (having head on both the faces), another is a biased
coin that comes up heads 75% of the time and the third coin is an unbiased coin. One of the three
coins is chosen at random and tossed. If it shows head, what is the probability that it was the two
headed coin?
13. Of the students in a school, it is known that 30% have 100% attendance and 70% students are
irregular. Previous year results report that 70% of all students who have 100% attendance attain A
grade and 10% irregular students attain A grade in their annual examination. At the end of the year,
one student is chosen at random from the school and he was found to have an A grade. What is the
probability that the student has 100% attendance?
14. Often it is taken that a truthful person commands, more respect in the society. A man is known to
speak truth 4 out of 5 times. He throws a die and reports that it is six. Find the probability that it is
actually a six.
15. Bag 𝐴 contains 3 red and 2 black balls, while bag 𝐵 contains 2 red and 3 black balls. A ball is drawn at
random from bag 𝐴 is transferred to bag 𝐵 and then one ball is drawn at random from bag 𝐵. If this
ball was found to be a red ball, find the probability that the ball drawn from bag 𝐴 was red.
16. Three machines 𝐸1 , 𝐸2 and 𝐸3 in a certain factory producing electric bulbs, produce 50%, 25% and
25% respectively, of the total daily output of electric bulbs. It is known that 4% of the bulbs produce
by each of machines 𝐸1 and 𝐸2 are defective and that 5% of those produced by machine 𝐸3 are
defective. If one bulb is picked up at random from a day’s production, calculate the probability that
it is defective.

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 17. The members of a consulting firm rent cars d=from three rental agencies: 50% from agency 𝑋, 30%
from agency 𝑌 and 20% from agency 𝑍. From experience it is known that 9% of the cars from agency
𝑋 need a service and tuning before renting, 12% of the cars from agency 𝑌 need service and tuning
before renting and 10% of cars from agency 𝑍 need service and tuning before renting. If the rental
car delivered to the firm needs a service and tuning, find the probability that agency 𝑍 is not to be
blamed.
18. An urn contains 4 balls. Two balls are drawn at random from the urn (without replacement) and are
found to be a white. What is the probability that all the four balls in the urn are white?
19. In answering a question on a multiple-choice test, a student either knows the answer or guesses. Let
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be the probability that he knows the answer and be the probability that he guesses. Assuming
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that a student who guesses the answer will be correct with probability 3, what is the probability that
the student knows the answer given that he answered it correctly?
20. Two numbers are selected at random (without replacement) from first 7 natural numbers. If 𝑋
denotes the smaller of the numbers obtained, find the probability distribution of 𝑋. Also, find mean
of the distribution.
21. The random variable 𝑋 can take only values 0, 1, 2, 3. Given that 𝑃(𝑋 = 0) = 𝑃(𝑋 = 1) = 𝑝 and
𝑃(𝑋 = 2) = 𝑃(𝑋 = 3) such that ∑ 𝑝𝑖 𝑥𝑖2 = 2 ∑ 𝑝𝑖 𝑥𝑖 , find the value of 𝑝.
22. From a lot of 30 bulbs which includes 6 defectives, a sample of 4 bulbs is drawn at random one by
one with replacement. Find the probability distribution of the number of defective bulbs. Hence find
the mean of the distributions.
23. Let 𝑋 denote the number of colleges where you will apply after your results and 𝑃(𝑋 = 𝑥) denotes
your probability of getting admission is 𝑥 number of colleges. It is given that:
𝑘𝑥, 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 0 𝑜𝑟 1
2𝑘𝑥, 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 2
𝑃(𝑋 = 𝑥) = {
𝑘(5 − 𝑥), 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 3 𝑜𝑟 𝑥 = 4
0, 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 > 4
Where 𝑘 is positive constant. Find the value of 𝑘. Also, find the probability that you will get admission
in
i) Exactly one college
ii) At most 2 colleges
iii) At least 2 colleges.
24. Two numbers are selected at random (without replacement) from the first six positive integers. Let
𝑋 denote the larger of the two numbers obtained. Find the probability distribution of random
variable 𝑋 and hence find the mean of the distribution.
25. Given two independent events 𝐴 and 𝐵 such that 𝑃(𝐴) = 0.3 and 𝑃(𝐵) = 0.6, find 𝑃(𝐴′ ∩ 𝐵′).
26. Three distinct numbers are chosen randomly from the first 50 natural numbers. Find the probability
that all the three numbers are divisible by both 2 and 3.
27. Find the probability distribution of 𝑋, the number of heads in a simultaneous toss of two coins.
28. A die is thrown 6 times. If “getting an odd number” is a “success”, what is the probability of
i) 5 successes
ii) At most 5 successes
29. The random variable 𝑋 has a probability distribution 𝑃(𝑋) of the following form, where ′𝑘′ is some
number.
𝑘, 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 0
2𝑘, 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 1
𝑃(𝑋 = 𝑥) = { . Determine the value of ‘k’.
3𝑘, 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 2
0, 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒

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 30. A black and red die are rolled together. Find the conditional probability of obtaining the sum 8, given
that the red die resulted in a number less than 4.
31. Three rotten apples are mixed with seven fresh apples. Find the probability distribution of the
number of rotten apples, if three apples are drawn one by one with replacement. Find the mean of
number of rotten apples.
32. In a shop 𝑋 , 30 tins of ghee of type 𝐴 and 40 tins of ghee of type 𝐵 which looks alike, are kept for
sale. While in shop 𝑌, similar 50 tins of ghee of type 𝐴 and 60 tins of ghee of type 𝐵 are there. One
tin of ghee is purchased from one of the randomly selected shops and is found to be type 𝐵. Find the
probability that it is purchased from shop 𝑌.
33. A coin biased so that the head is three times as likely to occur as tail. If the coin is tossed twice, find
the probability distribution of number of tails. Hence find the mean of the number of tails.
34. Suppose that 5 men out of 100 and 25 women out of 1000 are good orators. Assuming that there are
equal number of men and women, find the probability of choosing a good orator.
35. Suppose a girl throws a die. If she gets 1 or 2, she tosses a coin three times and notes the number of
tails. If she gets 3, 4, 5 or 6, she tossed a coin once and notes whether a ‘head’ or ‘tail’ is obtained. If
she obtained exactly one ‘tail’ what is the probability that she threw 3, 4, 5 or 6 with the die?
36. Two numbers are selected at random (without replacement) from the first five positive integers. Let
𝑋 denote the larger of the two numbers obtained. Find the mean and variance of 𝑋.
37. Two cards are drawn simultaneously (or successively without replacement) from a well shuffled pack
of 52 cards. Find the mean, variance, and standard deviation of the number of kings.

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