Practice Set 2

MAL 213 - Probability & Statistics

January 16, 2019

1. Two players A and B alternately roll a pair of unbiased dice. A wins if on a throw he
obtains exactly six points before B gets seven points, B winning in the opposite event. If
A begins the game, prove that his probability of winning is 30/61.

2. In a certain community, it is found that 60% of all property owners oppose an increase
in the property tax while 80% of non-property owners favor it. If 65% of all registered
voters are property owners, what proportion of registered voters favor the tax increase ?

3. A family has twins. It is known that one is a girl. What is the probability that both are
girls ?

4. A family has twins. It is known that first child is a girl. What is the probability that
both are girls ?

5. Two fair dice are thrown. Let A denote the event that the sum of the dice is 7. Let B be
the event that first die equals 4 and let C be the event that second die equals 3. Show
that A is independent of B and is also independent of C. But, A is not independent of
B ∩ C.

6. A biased coin with probability of obtaining a Head equal to p > 0 is tossed repeatedly and
independently until the first head is observed. Using Total Probability Theorem calculate
the probability that the first head appears at an even numbered toss.

7. Information is communicated digitally as a binary sequence known as “bits”. However,

the noise interference on the channel corrupts the signal, in that a digit transmitted as 0 is
received as 1 with probability 1 − p, with a similar random corruption when the digit 1 is
transmitted it is received 0 with probability again 1−p. It has been observed that, across a
large number of transmitted signals, the 0s and 1s are transmitted in the ratio 3 : 4. Given
that the sequence 101 is received, what is the probability distribution over transmitted
signals? Assume that the transmission and reception processes are independent.

8. At Duke University, two students had received A’s in chemistry all semester, but on the
night before the final exam, they partied all night, woke up too late, and missed the exam.
Their excuse to the professor was that they had a flat tire on the way to school, and they

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 asked if they could take a make-up test. The professor agreed, wrote out a test and sent
the two to separate rooms to take it. The first question (on one side of the paper) was
worth 10 points, and they answered it easily. Then they flipped the paper over and found
the second question, worth 90 points: Which tire was it ? What is the probability that
both students would say the same thing? I think it is 1/16. Is that right?
9. Suppose A and B are independent events. Prove that following pairs of events are also
independent
(a) Ac , B
(b) A, B c
(c) Ac , B c
10. Consider the following data available on 20 emails.

S.No. Contains word “Offer” Spam

1 yes yes
2 no yes
3 yes yes
4 yes yes
5 yes yes
6 no no
7 yes no
8 yes yes
9 yes yes
10 yes yes
11 yes yes
12 no yes
13 yes yes
14 yes yes
15 yes yes
16 no no
17 yes no
18 yes yes
19 no yes
20 no no

Suppose a new mail contains the word ‘Offer’. What is the probability that it is a SPAM
mail ? If the cutoff probability for SPAM mail is 0.90, whether this new mail should go
to SPAM folder or INBOX ?
11. Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors. Behind one
door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say door no. 1, and the host,
who knows what’s behind all the doors, opens another door, say door no. 3, which has a
goat. He then asks if you want to pick door no. 2? Should you switch ?