Stat 451

HOMEWORK 04

1. A hand of 13 cards is to be dealt at random and without replacement from an ordinary deck of playing
cards. Find the conditional probability that there are at least three kings in the hand given that the hand
contains at least two kings.

2. Cards are drawn at random and with replacement from an ordinary deck of playing cards until a spade
appears.
a. What is the probability that at least four draws are necessary?
b. Repeat part (a) except the cards are drawn without replacement.

3. Raji answers each of two multiple choice questions at random. If there are four possible choices on each
question, what is the conditional probability that both answers are correct, given that at least one is
correct?

4. Brenda is dealt (from a well-shuffled deck) five cards. She looks at the cards and discovers that there
are four spades in her hand, as well as one card of a different suit. Brenda decides to discard the card of
a different suit and draw one card from the remaining cards to complete a flush in spades (all five cards
spades). Determine the probability that she completes the flush.

5. In a certain factory, machines A, B, and C are all producing springs of the same length. Machines A, B,
and C produce 1%, 4%, and 2% defective springs, respectively. Of the total production of springs in the
factory, machine A produces 30%, machine B produces 25%, and machine C produces 45%.
a. If one spring is selected at random from the total springs produced in a given day, determine the
probability it is defective.
b. Given that the selected spring is defective, find the conditional probability that it was produced
by machine B.

6. Matthew is taking a multiple choice exam in which each question has 5 possible answers, exactly one of
which is correct. If Matthew knows the answer he selects the correct answer. Otherwise he selects one
answer at random from the 5 possible answers. Suppose that he knows the answer to 70% of the
questions.
a. What is the probability that on a given question, Matthew gets the correct answer?
b. If Matthew gets the correct answer to a question, what is the probability that he knows the
answer?

7. From a bowl containing five red, three white, and seven blue chips, select four at random and without
replacement. Compute the conditional probability of one red, zero white, and three blue chips, given
that there are at least three blue chips in this sample of four chips.

8. At the beginning of a study of individuals, 15% were classified as heavy smokers, 30% were classified
as light smokers, and 55% were classified as nonsmokers. In the five-year study, it was determined that
the death rates of the heavy and light smokers were five and three times that of the nonsmokers,
respectively. A randomly selected participant died over the five-year period: calculate the probability
that the participant was a nonsmoker.

9. Bowl I contains six red chips and four blue chips. Five of these 10 chips are selected at random and
without replacement and placed into Bowl II, which was originally empty. One chip is then drawn at
random from Bowl II. Given that this chip is blue, find the conditional probability that two red chips
and three blue chips are transferred from Bowl I to Bowl II.
 Stat 451
HOMEWORK 04

10. You get on an elevator at the ground floor with 4 other people in a 5-storey building; you will depart the
elevator on the 5th floor.
a. What is the probability that no two people will get off on the same floor?
b. What is the probability that no-one will ride with you all the way to the 5th floor?
c. If two of the other passengers depart the elevator on the second floor, what is the probability that
no-one will ride with you all the way to the 5th floor?

11. Your real estate agent tells you to go ahead and look at a prospective house, giving you a key ring with 8
keys on it. You try keys at random until you find the correct key, carefully making sure that you never
try the same key twice.
a. What is the probability that you find the correct key on the first try?
b. What is the probability that you find the correct key within the first three tries?
c. What is the probability that it takes you more than 4 tries to find the correct key?

12. At a local college, 70% of students live on campus and 30% live off campus. It is known that 40% of
the on-campus students and 60% of the off-campus students smoke cigarettes. What is the probability
that a student observed smoking a cigarette lives on campus?

13. Three fair, six-sided dice are rolled. If no two dice show the same face, what is the probability that one
of the dice shows a 6?

14. A fair, four-sided die is thrown as long as it is necessary for a value of one to appear. Assuming that the
one does not appear on the first throw, what is the probability that more than three throws will be
necessary?

15. A closet contains 6 distinct pairs of shoes (so there are 12 shoes total). You select 6 shoes at random
from the closet.
a. What is the probability that there is at least one pair among the shoes you selected?
b. A friend looks at the 6 shoes you collected and informs you that you have no more than 2 pairs
of shoes. What is the probability that there is at least one pair among the 6 shoes you selected?
c. You draw two shoes that do not match each other. What is the probability that you have at least
one pair of shoes if you draw 4 more shoes at random from the 10 remaining shoes in the closet?

16. A pair of balanced, six-sided dice is cast until either the sum of seven or eight appears.
a. Show that the probability of a seven before an eight is 6/11 (given that the experiment has
stopped, so either a seven or an eight must have appeared).
b. (bonus) Next, this pair of dice is cast until a seven appears twice or until each of a six and eight
has appeared at least once. Show that the probability of the six and eight occurring before two
sevens is 4225/7744.