REVIEW FOR MIDTERM EXAM

1. Five men and 5 women are ranked according to their scores on an examination.
Assume that no two scores are alike and all 10! possible rankings are equally
likely. Let X denote the highest ranking achieved by a woman. (For example X=1
if the top-ranked person is female). Find P{X=i}, i = 1, 2, 3, ... , 8, 9, 10.
2. Suppose that a die is rolled twice. What are the possible values that the following
random variables can take on: (a) the maximum value to appear in the two rolls;
(b) the minimum value to appear in the two rolls; (c) the sum of the two rolls; (d)
the value of the first roll minus the value of the second roll?
3. A salesman has scheduled two appointments to sell encyclopedias. His first
appointment will lead to a sale with probability .3, and his second will lead
independently to a sale with probability .6. Any sale made is equally likely to be
either for the deluxe model, which costs $1000, or the standard model, which costs
$500. Determine the probability mass function of X, the total dollar value of all
sales.
4. You have $1000, and a certain commodity presently sells for $2 per ounce.
Suppose that after one week the commodity will sell for either $1 or $4 an ounce,
with these two possibilities being equally likely. (a) If your objective is to
maximize the expected amount of money that you possess at the end of the week,
what strategy should you employ? (b) If your objective is to maximize the
expected amount of the commodity that you possess at the end of the week, what
strategy should you employ?
5. 1. A lot of 100 semiconductor chips contains 20 that are defective. Two chips are
selected at random, without replacement, from the lot.
(a) What is the probability that the first one selected is defective?
(b) What is the probability that the second one selected is defective given that the
first one was defective?
(c) What is the probability that both are defective?
6. A die is rolled 7 times.
(a) What is the probability that a 6 turns up exactly 5 times?
(b) What is the most probable number of times that a 6 will turn up?
7. A student is applying to Harvard and Dartmouth. He estimates that he has a
probability of .5 of being accepted at Dartmouth and .3 of being accepted at Harvard.
He further estimates the probability that he will be accepted by both is .2. What is the
probability that he is accepted by Dartmouth if he is accepted by Harvard? Is the
event “accepted at Harvard” independent of the event “accepted at Dartmouth”?