PROBABILITY

LESSON PLAN
Binomial Distribution
1. Ten coins are thrown simultaneously. Find the probability of getting at least seven heads.
2. A and B plays a game in which their chances of winning are in the ratio 3:2. Find As chance of winning
at least three games out of five games played.
3. A coffee connoisseur claims that he can distinguish between a cup of instant coffee and a cup of
percolator coffee 75% of the time. It is agreed that his claim will be accepted if he correctly identifies at
least 5 of the 6 cups. Find his chance of having the claim (i) accepted, (ii) rejected, when he does have
the ability he claims.
4. A multiple choice test consists of 8 questions with 3 answers to each question (of which only one is
correct). A student answers each questions by rolling a die and checking the first answer if he gets 1 or
2, the second answer if he gets 3 or 4 and the third answer if he gets 5 or 6. To get a distinction, the
student must secure at least 75% correct answer. If there is no negative marking, what is the probability
that the student secures a distinction?
5. An irregular six-faced die is thrown and the expectation that in the 10 throws it will give five even
numbers is twice the expectation that it will give four even numbers. How many items in 10,000 sets of
10 throws each, would you expect it to give not an even numbers?
6. A department in a works has 10 machines which may need adjustment from time to time during the day.
Three of these machines are old; each having a probability of 1/11 of needing adjustment during the day,
and 7 are new, having corresponding probabilities of 1/21.
Assuming that no machine needs adjustment twice on the same day, determine the probabilities that on
a particular day,
(i)
Just 2 old and no new machines need adjustment.
(ii)
If just 2 machines need adjustment, they are of the same type.
7. The probability of a man hitting a target is .
(i)
If he fires 7 times, what is the probability of his hitting the target at least twice?
(ii)
How many times he fires so that the probability of his hitting at least once is greater than 2/3?
8. In a precision bombing attack there is a 50% chance that any one bomb will strike the target. Two direct
hits are required to destroy the target completely. How many bombs must be dropped to give a 99%
chance or better of completely destroying the target?
9. In a binomial distribution consisting of 5 independent trials, probabilities of 1 and 2 successes are
0.4096 and 0.2048 respectively. Find the parameter p of the distribution.
10. With the usual notations, find p for the binomial variate X, if n=6 and 9P(X=4) = P(X=2)
Poisson Distribution
11. Establish the Poisson distribution result from the Binomial distribution.
12. A manufacturer of cotter pins knows that 5% of his product is defective. If he sells cotter pins in boxes
of 100 and guarantees that not more than 10 pins will be defective, what is the approximate probability
that a box will fail to meet the guaranteed quality?
13. A car hires firm has two cars, which it hires out day by day. The number of demands for a car on each
day is distributed as a Poisson distribution with mean 1.5. Calculate the proportion of days on which
(i)
Neither car is used

(ii)

The proportion of days on which some demand is refused

14. An insurance company insures 4,000 people against loss of both eyes in a car accident. Based on the
previous data, the rates were computed on the assumption that on the average 10 persons in 1,00,000
will have car accident each year that results in this type of injury. What is the probability that more than
3 of the insured will collect on their policy in a given year?
15. A manufacturer, who produces medicine bottles, finds that 0.1% of the bottles are defective. The bottles
are packed in boxes containing 500 bottles. A drug manufacturer buys 100 boxes from the produce of
bottles. Using Poisson distribution, find how many boxes will contain:
(i)
No defectives
(ii)
At least two defectives [Given, e-0.5 = 0.6065]
16. In a book of 520 pages, 390 typo-graphical errors occur. Assuming Poisson law for the number of errors
per page, find the probability that a random sample of 5 pages will contain no error.
17. A manager accepts the work submitted by his typist only when there is no mistake in the work. The
typist has to type on an average 20 letters per day of about 200 words each. Find the chance of her
making a mistake:
(i)
If less than 1% of the letters submitted by her are rejected.
(ii)
If on 90% days all the letters submitted by her are accepted. [Given, e=2.72]
Normal Distribution
18. X is normally distributed and the mean X is 12 S.D. is 4.
a. Find out the probability of the following
(i)
X 20, (ii) X 20 and (iii) 0 X 12
b. Find x when P(X>x) = 0.24
c. Find x0 and x1 when P(x0<X< x1) = 0.50 and P(X> x1) = 0.25
19. The mean yield for one-acre plot is 662 kilos with a s.d. 32 kilos. Assuming normal distribution, how
many one acre plots in a batch of 1,000 plots would you expect to have yield
(i)
Over 700 kilos
(ii)
Below 650 kilos
(iii)
What is the lowest yield of the best 100 plots?
20. There are six hundred Economics students in the post-graduate classes of a university, and the
probability for any student to need a copy of a particular book from the university library on any day is
0.05. How many copies of the book should be kept in the university library so that the probability may
be greater than 0.90 that none of the students needing a copy from the library has to come back
disappointed?
21. The marks obtained by a number of students for a certain subject are assumed to be approximately
normally distributed with mean value 65 and with a standard deviation of 5. If 3 students are taken at
random from this set, what is the probability that exactly 2 of them will have marks over 70?
22. In an examination it is laid down that a student passes if he secures 30% or more marks. He is placed in
the first, second or third division according as he secures 60% or more marks, between 45% and 60%
marks and marks between 30% and 45% respectively. He gets distinction in case he secures 80% or
more marks. It is noticed from the results that 10% of the students failed in the examination; where as
5% of them obtained distinction. Calculate the percentage of students placed in the second division.
(assume normal distribution of marks)
23. A sample of 100 items is taken from a batch known to contain 40% defectives. What is the probability
that the sample contains:
(i)
At least 44 defectives.
(ii)
Exactly 44 defectives.

Correlation Coefficient
24. Calculate the correlation coefficient for the following heights (in inches) of father (X) and their sons(Y)
X:
65
66
67
67
68
69
70
72
Y:
67
68
65
68
72
72
69
71
25. The variables X and Y are connected by the equation aX + bY + c = 0. Show that the correlation
between them is 1 if the sign of a and b are alike and +1 if they are different.
26. The random variable X and Y are jointly normally distributed and U and V are difined by U=Xcos +
Ysin, V=Ycos Xsin.
Show that U and V will be uncorrelated if
2 r x y
tan 2 = 2
x y 2
Where r = corr.(X, Y); x2 = Var(X) and y2 = Var(Y). Are U and V independent?
27. If X and Y are uncorrelated random variables with means zero and varience 12 and 22 respectively.
Show that U=Xcos + Ysin, V=Xsin Ycos
12 22
=
2
Have a correlation coefficient given by
2 2 + 4 2 2 cosec 2 2

[(

Regression
28. Obtain the equations of two lines of regression for the following data. Also obtain the estimate of X for
Y = 70.
X:
65
66
67
67
68
69
70
72
Y:
67
68
65
68
72
72
69
71
29. In a partially destroyed laboratory, records of an analysis of correlation data, the following results only
are legible:
Variance of X = 9;
Regression equations: 8X 10Y +66 = 0 and 40X 18Y = 214.
What are (i) the mean values of X and Y.
(ii) the correlation coefficient between X and Y.
(iii) the standard deviation of Y.
30. Find the most likely price in Mumbai corresponding to the price of Rs. 70 at Kolkata from the
following:
Kolkata
Mumbai
Average Price
65
67
Standard Deviation
2.5
3.5
Correlation coefficient between the prices of commodities in the two cities is 0.8
31. For the 10 randomly selected observations, the following data were recorded:
Observation No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Overtime Hours (X)
1
1
2
2
3
3
4
5
6
Additional Units (Y)
2
7
7
10
8
12
10
14
11
Determine the coefficients of regression and regression equation using the non-linear form
Y = a + b1X + b2X2.

10
7
14