Random Variables

- Is a set whose elements are the numbers assigned to the outcomes of an experiment. It is usually denoted by
uppercase letters such as X, whose elements are denoted by a lower case letters, x1, x2, x3, and so on.

- For instance, if a coin is tossed twice, the set of all possible outcomes (S) of the experiment is:
S = {HH, HT, TH, TT}

If we are interested in the number of tails that came out in the experiment, then we can assign numbers 0, 1 and 2 for
each of the 4 possible outcomes. Thus we can write

Sample Space Number of Tails From the table above, instead of writing number of
HH 0 tails, we can denote it as X = {0,1,2}
HT 1
Then X is called Random Variables
TH 1
TT 2
Types of Random Variables

1. Discrete random variables

- A random variable X is said to discrete random variable if it has a finite number of elements or infinite but
can be represented by whole numbers. These values usually arise from counts.

2. Continuous random variable

- A random variable Y is said to be continuous random variable if it has infinite number of elements and cannot
be represented by whole numbers. These values usually arise from measurements
Example 1: A teacher’s record has the following
X = Scores of students in a 50 item test
Y = Gender
Z = Height

Classify each variable above as discrete or continuous

Solutions: X is a discrete random variable
Y is a discrete random variable
Z is a continuous random variables
Example 2: Write the possible values of each random variables
a. X = number of heads in tossing a coin thrice
b. Y = dropout rate (%) in a certain high school
c. Z = number of female among 6 nurses

Solution:
a. X = {0, 1, 2, 3}
b. Y = {all real numbers from 0 to 100} or {x|0 ≤ x ≤ 100}
c. Z = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
Practice Exercise 1.1

A. Classify each random variable as discrete or continuous

1. X = number of women among 10 newly hired teachers

2. Y = height (in inches) of a randomly selected adult male
3. Z = number of car accidents among 8 selected cities
4. A = amount of rainfall in (mm) in the different cities
5. B = number of gifts received by 20 students during Christmas season
6. C = weight (in grams) of 8 randomly selected math books
7. D = cost (rounded to the nearest PhP) of a statistics book
8. E = number of eggs a hen lays
9. F = the amount of milk obtained from a cow
10. G = average temperature (in Celsius) in Baguio city for the past 5 days
B. Write all the possible values of each random variable as describe.

1. X = number of even number outcomes in a roll of a die

2. Y = weight (in mg) of a powder that does not exceed 80 mg
3. Z = number of heads in a 4 flips of a coin
4. A = length (in cm) of a shoelace that is not longer 2 meters
5. B = scores of a students in a 10 item test
6. C = probability (in %) of raining today
7. D = product of two numbers taken from a boxes containing number 0 through 5
8. F = duration (in minutes) of a movie that does not exceed 2 hours
9. G = number of typhoons that pass through PAR in a years
10. H = number of pages a statistics book has