Probability and Statistics

IISER Pune
Assignment 1, Page 1 of 2 January 2015

January 2015

1. Amit throws six dice and wins if he scores at least one ace. Basu throws twelve dice
and wins if he scores at least two aces. Who has the greater probability to win?
6

Answer: Prob (Amit loses)= 566 ; Prob(Amit wins) =0.665.

11
12
P(Basu loses)=12 6512 + 5612 ; Prob(Basu wins)=0.618.
2. In a certain colony, 60% of the families won a car, 30% own a house and 20% won
both a car and a house. If a family is randomly selected, what is the probability that
this family owns a car or a house but not both.
Answer: C=car, H=house. P (C) = 0.6, P (H) = 0.3, P (CH) = 0.2.
P (C CH) + P (H CH) = (0.6 0.2) + (0.3 0.2) = 0.5.
3. Given thirty people, find the probability that among the twelve months there are six
containing two birthdays and six containing three.
30! 12
( )
Answer: 26 6126 306 .
4. A coin is tossed until for the first time the same result appears twice in succession.
Describe the sample space. Find the probability of the following events: (a) the
experiment ends before the sixth toss, (b) an even number of tosses is required.
Answer: Sample Space= {HH, T T, HT T, T HH, HT HH, T HT T, . . .}.
1
P (n tosses required) = P (n) = 2n1
.
(a) P ( the experiment ends before the sixth toss) = P (2) + P (3) + P (4) + P (5) =
1
15
+ 212 + 213 + 214 = 16
.
2
2
(b) 3 .
5. If n distinct balls are placed at random into n distinct cells, find the probability that
exactly one cell remains empty.
(n)n!
Answer: 2nn
6. Consider the 24 possible arrangements (permutations) of the symbols 1234 and attach
1
to each probability 24
. Let Ai be the event that the digit i appears at its natural
place (where i = 1, 2, 3, 4). Verify that P (Ai Aj ) = P (Ai ) + P (Aj ) P (Ai Aj ).
Answer: P (Ai ) =

3!
4!

= 41 . P (Ai Aj ) =

2!
4!

1
.
12

Thus P (Ai Aj ) =

1
4

+ 14

1
12

5
12

7. A closet contains n pairs of shoes. If 2r shoes are chosen at random (with 2r < n),
what is the probability that there will be (a) no complete pair, (b) exactly one
complete pair, (c) exactly two complete pairs among them?
Answer: (a)

n1
n2
(2rn )22r
(n1 )(2r2
)22r2
(n2 )(2r4
)22r4
,
(b)
(c)
(2n
(2n
(2n
2r )
2r )
2r )

8. Two dice are thrown. Let A be the event that the sum of the faces is odd, B be
the event of at least one ace. Describe the events AB, A B, AB c . Find their
probabilities assuming that all 36 sample points have equal probabilities.

Answer: A = {12, 21, 41, 14, 23, 32, 16, 61, 25, 52, 34, 43, 36, 63, 45, 54, 56, 65}
6
B = {11, 12, 21, 13, 31, 14, 41, 15, 51, 16, 61}. P (AB) = |AB|
= 36
= 61 .
36
6
+ 11
36
= 23
.
P (A B) = P (A) + P (B) P (AB) = 18
36
36
36
12
c
c
AB =sum of faces is odd and no unit face. P (AB ) = 36
P
9. Show that P (ni=1 Ai ) ni=1 P (Ai ) (n 1)
P
P
Answer: P (ni=1 Ai ) = 1 P (ni=1 Aci ) 1 ni=1 P (Aci ) = 1 ni=1 (1 P (Ai ))
10. An urn contains 3 red balls and 5 blue balls. Calculate the probability that in two
draws the second draw will be a blue ball given the first draw is red.
Answer: 57 .
11. In answering a question on a multiple choice test a student either knows the answer
or she guesses. Let p be the probability that she knows the answer and 1 p the
probability that she guesses. Assume that a student who guesses at the answer will
be correct with probability m1 , where m is the number of multiple choice alternatives.
What is the conditional probability that a student knew the answer to a question
given that she answered it correctly?
Answer: This requires Bayes theorem; we will learn Bayes theorem in the coming
week. However, here is the answer:
P(answer is correct)=P(Answer is correct |She knows the answer) P(She knows he
answer) +P(Answer is correct |She guesses) P(She guesses) = p + 1p
m
Thus, P(She knows the answer | Answer is correct) = p+p1p .
m

12. If P (Ac ) = 0.3, P (B) = 0.4 and P (A B c ) = 0.5, find P (B|A B c ).

(AB)
c
Answer: P (B|A B c ) = PP(AB
c ) . P (AB) = P (A) P (A B ) = 0.7 0.5 = 0.2.
P (A B c ) = P ( Ac B) = P ( (B AB)) = 1 (0.4 0.2) = 0.8.
Thus required probability is 14 .