MA2177 Exercise 5 – Ch.

5 Probability and Discrete Probability Distributions

Binomial distribution
1. State the conditions under which the binomial distribution may be used. Hence, or otherwise,
find
(i) the probability of 3 heads in 5 flips of a fair coin, and
(ii)* the probability of less than 45 heads in 100 flips of a fair coin by using the normal
approximation to the binomial distribution.

2. A die is weighted so that the numbers 1 to 6 come up with probabilities proportional to their
values (so that 2 is twice as likely as 1, and 3 is three times as likely as 1, and so on).

(i) Determine the probability of obtaining at least one 6 in three consecutive throws.
(ii) Find the mean and variance of the value obtained in one throw.

3. A warship is going to shoot at an enemy ship three times. The probability of success in each
shot is 0.4.

(i) Find the probabilities that the enemy ship would get 0, 1, 2 and 3 hits.
(ii) What is the expected number of hits? Mean

4. Nailbiter Airlines know that, on average, only 90% of the ticket-holders for the Thursday
night Washington-to-Nashville flight will show up at the gate in time to board the plane.
For that reason, the company routinely sells more tickets than their aircraft has seats.
Suppose they have just booked 260 passengers for next week’s flight (and the plane has 240
seats).

(i) Write a formula for the exact probability that not all the ticket-holders who show up
next Thursday can be accommodated.
*
(ii) Use the normal distribution to approximate the probability asked for in Part (i).

Poisson distribution
5. A student finds that the average number of amoebas in 10ml of pond water from a particular
pond is four. Assuming that the number of amoebas follows a Poisson distribution, find the
probability that in a 10ml sample
(i) there are exactly five amoebas,
(ii) there are no amoebas,
(iii) there are fewer than three amoebas.

*
This question is covered in Chapter 6 (Normal Approximation to Binomial).