1. For two events A and B, P(A) = 0.6, P(B) = 0.7. What is the minimum possible value of P(A∩B)?

2. If A and B are two events such that A and B are mutually exclusive, P(A) > 0, P(B) >0, then
can A and B be independent? Justify your answer.
3. Is anything wrong with the following argument? 20% of the Indians are senior citizens, 45% of
the Indians are women. So the proportion of women senior citizens is 45% of 20% = 9%.
4. Suppose A, B and C are mutually independent events and that P(A) = 0.5, P(B) = 0.8 and P(C)
= 0.9. Find the probabilities that
(a) All three events occur.
(b) Exactly two of the three events occur.
(c) None of the events occurs.
5. Two fair dice are thrown n times in succession. What is the probability of obtaining double six
at least once?
6. If n accidents have taken place in Jamshedpur during the first N days of the year 2020, what
is the probability that on January 1st, exactly b accidents took place in Jamshedpur?
7. In a game, a fair coin is tossed repeatedly until two heads or two tails occur consecutively, e.g.,
two possible complete sequences are HH and THTHTT, (H = head, T = tail.)
(a) What is the (unconditional) probability that the game stops at 5 tosses?
(b) Given that the game has stopped at 25 tosses, what is the probability that more heads were
obtained than tails?
8. A locality has been divided in k regions containing n houses each, labeled from 1 to n. One
house is randomly selected from each region. What is the probability that m is the greatest label
drawn?
9. In a psychology experiment, each subject is presented 3 ordinary cards, face down. The subject
takes one of those cards. The subject also takes one card at random from a separate, full, deck of
52 cards. If the two cards are from the same suit (Heart/Diamond/Club/Spade), the subject wins a
prize. What is the chance of winning?
10. If A, B and C are three events such that P(A|B) = P(A) and P(A|C) = P(A) where P(A) > 0, then
are A, B and C mutually independent of each other? Justify your answer.
11. Consider families with two children. If one child of a family is a boy, what is the probability
that the other child is a girl?
12. From a class of m boys and n girls, k (< m+n) students are randomly selected to volunteer for
school sports. We do not know their gender. Now one more student from the remaining students
in the class is randomly selected. Find the probability that it is a girl.
13. According to a research study, the incidence rate of HIV in India is 0.4% for a certain section
of the population. A Clinical test in India is 95% accurate in detecting HIV. i.e., if there is actually
HIV, the test will be correctly detect it 95% of the times. If there is no HIV, the test will again be
correct in 95% of cases. A person from this section of the population undergoes a test and the test
says he has HIV.
(a) What is the probability that he really has the disease?

1
(b) A second independent test that has similar accuracy also comes out positive. Now, what is the
probability that he has disease? (Such an update of probability based on additional information is
referred to as "Bayesian Update")
14. Three dies are thrown. Work out the following probabilities assuming I) the dies are fair, II)
the dies are biased with P(1) = 0.25, P(2) = P(3) = P(4) = P(5) = P (6) = 0.15:
(a) the sum of the numbers shown on the three dice is even
(b) the product of the numbers shown on the three dice is divisible by 4
(c) the sum of the numbers shown on the three dice is even, given that their product is divisible
by 4
15. In a factory, Machines A, B and C manufacture 25, 35 and 40 percent of total production
respectively. Of their output 5, 4 and 2 percent are defective respectively. A product is drawn at
random from the produce and is found to be defective. What is the probability that it was
manufactured by Machine A?
16. A production process involves three machines A, B and C, which produce 50%, 30% and 20%
respectively of the total output. Out of the items produced by Machine A, 10% fail in a quality
control test. The corresponding figures for Machines B and C are 20% and 30% respectively. All
items passing the quality control test are directly acceptable. On the other hand, items failing in
the quality control test are further processed and thus 40%, 50% and 60% of them turn out to be
marginally acceptable, depending on whether they came from Machines A, B and C respectively.
For example, out of the items that are produced by Machine A and that fail in the quality control
test, 40% eventually turn out to be marginally acceptable, and so on.
(a) Find the unconditional probability that a randomly chosen item from the production process is
found to be directly acceptable.
(b) Find the probability that a randomly chosen item from the production process turns out to be
marginally acceptable.
(c) Given that a randomly chosen item from the production process has failed in the quality control
test, what is the conditional probability that it turns out to be marginally acceptable?
(d) Given that a randomly chosen item from the production process has turned out to be marginally
acceptable, what is the conditional probability that it was produced by Machine A?
(e) Given that a randomly chosen item was not produced by Machine B, what is the conditional
probability that it turns out to be marginally acceptable?
17. Scott Myers is a security analyst for a telecommunications firm called Webtalk. Although he is
optimistic about the firm’s future, he is concerned that its stock price will be hugely affected by the
condition of credit flow in the economy. He believes that the probability is 0.2 that credit flow will
improve significantly, 0.5 that it will improve only marginally and 0.3 that it would not improve at
all. He also estimates that the probability that the stock price of Webtalk will go up by at least 20%
is 0.9 with significant improvement in credit flow, 0.4 with marginal improvement in credit flow
and 0.1 with no improvement in credit flow.
(a) What is the unconditional probability that the stock price of Webtalk goes up by at least 20%?
(b) Given that the stock price of Webtalk has not gone up by more than 20%, what is the probability
that there was no improvement in credit flow?

2
18. Two six faced fair dice are thrown. Let Event A = Die 1 shows six, Event B = Die 2 shows six
and Event C = Both dice show the same face. Show that A, B, C are pairwise independent but not
mutually independent.
19. Consider families with 3 children. Let B denote boy and G denote girl. Assume that all 8
possibilities for the three children in order have equal probabilities. Define events A B and C as
follows: A= at least 2 boys, B= 1st child is a girl, C= 2nd child is a boy. Show that P(A ∩ B ∩ C) =
P(A) × P(B) × P(C) but A, B, C are not pairwise independent.
20. A machine has n components. It functions only if at least one component functions. All
components function independently and probability of any one component not functioning is p.
What is the probability that all components are functioning given that the machine is functioning?
21. Consider the following system where gas is supposed to flow from A to B:

There are three valves in the system: V1, V2 and V3, each of which may develop faults, and hence
stop working, independently with probability p. Gas will flow from A to B if either both valves in
the pair (V1, V2) or the valve V3 or all three valves are functional.
(a) What is the probability that gas is flowing from A to B?
(b) Given that gas is flowing from A to B, what is the probability that V1 has developed a fault?
(c) Given that gas is not flowing from A to B, what is the probability that V1 has not developed a
fault?
22. Simpson's paradox, or the Yule–Simpson effect, is a paradox in which a trend that appears in
different groups of data disappears when these groups are combined, and the reverse trend appears
for the aggregate data. Consider the following example:
Abracadabra University is well-known for its bias against women. Last year 3000 applicants
applied to join the undergraduate programme of the university, among them 2000 were men and
1000 women. 100 women were shortlisted (10%), along with 300 men (15%). A clear case of sexual
bias is apparent. In fact, that has been the trend for years.
What, however, baffles the university authority is that they gave clear instruction to both of its two
schools, Arts and Science, to try to admit more women, and they did try to oblige. So what
happened? Let’s examine the admission offers last year:
Men Women
Arts 295 accepted/1900 applied 10 accepted/50 applied
Science 5 accepted/100 applied 90 accepted/950 applied
Compute and compare the proportion of men and women admitted to the Schools of Arts and
Science: i.e. compute
(a) What is the probability that a random male applicant gets selected in the School of Arts?

3
(b) What is the probability that a random female applicant gets selected in the School of Arts?
(c) What is the probability that a random applicant gets selected in the School of Arts?
(d) What is the probability that a random male applicant gets selected in the School of Science?
(e) What is the probability that a random female applicant gets selected in the School of Science?
(f) What is the probability that a random applicant gets selected in the School of Science?
(g) Based on (a)-(f) above, can you explain what is going on? Is the criticism towards the university
justifiable? What is your take on this analysis?
23. Consider a random variable X with the following distribution:
X -3 -1 0 1 2 3 5 8
0.1 0.2 0.15 0.2 0.1 0.15 0.05 0.05
P(X = x)
(a) P(X > 0),
(b) P(X is even),
(c) P(1 ≤ X ≤ 8),
(d) P(X = -3 | X ≤ 0),
(e) P(X ≥ 3 | X > 0),
(f) E[X],
(g) V[X].

24. Suppose that a school has 20 classes: 16 with 25 students in each, three with 100 students in
each and one with 300 students for a total of 1000 students.
(a) What is the average class size?
(b) Suppose a student is picked at random from the 1000 students. Let X= size of the class to which
(s)he belongs. What is the p.m.f of X?
(c) What is E[X]?
(d) Is it surprising that a) and c) are not equal? Can you define a random variable Y such that E[Y]
will give the answer in a)?
25. A gambling guide recommends the following ``winning strategyʹʹ to make money in the game
of roulette. It recommends that a gambler bet Rs.100 on red. If red appears, then the gambler
should take the money and quit. If he loses, then he should bet Rs.100 on red for the next two spins
and then quit. Note that P(red) = 9/19. Note that if betting Rs.100 means that you pay the casino
Rs.100 to play; if you win you get back your Rs.100 plus another Rs.100, but if you lose then the
casino keeps your payment. Let X be the gambler’s winnings when he quits. Find P(X>0) and E(X)
and comment on the strategy.
26. Let X~Binomial(5,0.5) and Y~Bin(5,0.3), independent of each other. Which of the following
is/are true?
(a) E(X+Y) = 4 (b) V(X+Y) = 2.3 (c) X+Y~ Bin(10, 0.4)

4
27. According to a study conducted on eating habits of an adult population in a country, it is found
that 25% of males and 20% of females never eat breakfast. Suppose a sample of 5 men and 5 women
are chosen. Compute the probability that
(a) At least 2 of the 10 never eat breakfast.
(b) The number of women who eat breakfast is at least as much as the number of men who eat
breakfast.
(c) What would have been the answer to (a) if both the percentage of men and women who did not
eat breakfast were equal to 20%?
28. Probability of hitting a target is 0.2 and 10 shots are fired independently.
(a) What is the probability of never hitting the target in the ten attempts?
(b) What is the probability of hitting the target in the 7th attempt for the first time? What about
the second time?
(c) What is the probability of hitting the target at least twice in 10 attempts?
(d) What is the probability that the target was hit at least twice in 10 attempts, given that it had
been hit at least once in 10 attempts?
(e) Five more shots are fired, independently among themselves and independent of the previous
shots. What is the probability of at least two hits to the target in these 15 shots if i) the probability
of hitting remains 0.2 for these five shots, and ii) the probability of hitting the target in the last 5
shots is revised to 0.5 for the last five shots?
29. An airline always overbooks if there is demand. A particular plane has 180 seats and each
ticket cost Rs. 4000. The airline has sold 190 such tickets.
(a) If the probability of an individual not showing up is 0.05, assuming independence, what is the
probability that the airline can accommodate all who show up? (Hint: Define r.v X = number of
people who show up out of 190. Express the probability in terms of X and compute.)
(b) If the airline must return the ticket price, plus pay a penalty of Rs. 5000 to all who show up but
cannot be accommodated, what is the expected total penalty that the airline will have to pay? (Hint:
Create a new r.v. Y= penalty paid by airline. Express Y in terms of X. Since we know the
distribution of X, find the distribution of Y. i.e. identify the possible values of Y and the
corresponding probabilities.)

30. In a certain shop floor, a certain machine has 1% rate of producing defective items. The items
are packed in lots of 50. A customer will not accept a lot if it contains 3 or more defectives.
(a) If it is known that a lot is not defective free, find the probability that it will be rejected by the
customer.
(b) Find the probability that out of 10 lots, exactly 2 are rejected by the customer.

31. A graduating student keeps applying for a job until she gets an offer. Assume that she applies
for one job at a given time, waits for the result and then applies for the next job. The probability of
getting a job offer on an application is p.

5
(a) If p = 0.25, what is the expected value and variance of the number of applications?
(b) Let p = 0.25. Suppose she only has time to apply for at most four jobs. What is the probability
that she will get at least one job offer?
(c) Suppose she only has time to apply for at most four jobs. What would be the minimum value of
p that would ensure at least a 95% chance of getting at least one job offer?
32. The number of breakdowns of a computer system in a month is believed to follow a Poisson
distribution. It has been consistently observed in the past that the average number of monthly
break downs is 1. Find the probability that this computer will work for 3 months (a) without any
break down (b) with exactly one break down.
33. Colour blindness occurs in 1% of a population. How large a random sample (with replacement)
should one draw from the population if the probability of it containing at least 1 colour blind person
is 95% or more? Use both the binomial and Poisson distributions to derive the required sample
sizes.
34. X and Y are random variables with the joint distribution as given in the table below:
X Values
Y values↓ -1 0 2 6
-2 1/9 1/27 1/27 1/9
1 2/9 0 1/9 1/9
3 0 0 1/9 4/27
(a) Obtain the marginal distributions of X and Y.
(b) Are X and Y independent?
(c) Compute P(Y is even).
(d) Compute P(XY is odd).
(e) Compute E(X) and V(X).
(f) Compute E(Y) and V(Y).
(g) Compute Cov(X,Y) and Cor(X,Y).
35. Trains headed to a destination A arrive at station at 15-minute intervals starting at 7:10 A.M.,
whereas trains headed to destination B arrive at 15-minute intervals starting at 7 A.M. If a certain
passenger arrives at the station at a time that is uniformly distributed between 7 and 8 A.M, and
then gets on the first train that arrives what is the probability that the passenger travels to A?
36. You arrive at a bus stop at 10 A.M, knowing that the waiting time for the buses have an
exponential distribution with a mean of 30 minutes.
(a) What is the probability that you will wait more than 10 minutes?
(b) If at 10:15 am the bus has still not arrived, what is the probability that you will wait for at least
10 more minutes?
(c) What is the probability of exactly two buses arriving during 10am-11am?
37. An average CFL is supposed to last for 1 year. Assume the lifetime is distributed exponentially.
Find the probability that

6
(a) A CFL bulb last for 2 years or more.
(b) Among the 5 CFL bulbs I have in my house, at least 4 last for 2 years or more.
(c) On average, the 5 CFL bulbs in my house last for 2 years or more.
38. The annual net margins of a hundred-year-old company are known to be approximately
normally distributed. It has been observed that in 20 of the 100 years the net margins have fallen
below 0 and in 10 of the 100 years the margins have exceeded 5 crores. What can we say about the
expected value and the standard deviation of net margins?
39. X and Y are two independent random variables distributed normally with mean 1 and variance
1. In the table below, match the variables in the left-hand side with the corresponding distributions
in the right-hand side.

X+Y N(1,0.5)

X-Y N(2,2)

2X+3Y N(0,2)

0.5X+0.5Y N(0,5)

2X-Y-1 N(5,13)

40. A manufacturer makes shafts for electric motors. The external diameter is normally distributed
with mean 1 inch and SD 0.001 inch. The manufacturer purchases bushings which the shaft passes
through. The internal diameter of the hole in the bushing is normally distributed with mean 1.002
inch and SD 0.001 inch. When the shaft is put in the bushing the clearance is defined as the
diameter of the hole in the bushing minus the diameter of the shaft. Negative clearance means the
shaft does not fit.
(a) For a shaft and bushing selected at random, what is the probability that the shaft does not fit?
(b) To operate properly the clearance should be between 0.0016 and 0.0048 inch. What fraction of
the assembled units will be in this range?
41. A food processor packages instant coffee in small jars. The weights of the jars are normally
distributed with a standard deviation of 3 grams. If 5% of the jars weigh more than 124.92 grams,
then what is the mean weight of the jars?
42. A project has four phases viz. 1,2,3,4. A phase cannot start until the previous phase is
completed. The time to completion for each phase is believed to be normally distributed with means
6, 12, 4 and 8 weeks respectively and standard deviations 1,3,1 and 2 weeks respectively.
Completion times of the different stages are independent of each other.
(a) What is the expected total time and SD of total time for completion of the project?
(b) What is the probability that phase 3 can be started no later than 20 weeks from start?

7
(c) If the project is scheduled to be completed in 32 weeks, what is the probability that it will be
completed in time?
(d) What should be the planned duration if a probability of 80% is specified for in time completion
of the project?
43. There are three lunch specials in a restaurant: A, B and C, which cost Rs.100, Rs. 140 and Rs.
150 respectively. A student, who lunches in that restaurant every day, chooses these three specials
with probabilities 60%, 20% and 20% respectively. He chooses one lunch special every day
independently of his previous decisions.
(a) Obtain the distribution of the student’s daily expenditure on lunch.
(b) Obtain the distribution of the student’s average expenditure on lunch over two days.
(c) Obtain the distribution of the student’s average expenditure on lunch over 30 days.
44. You manage a sales organisation consisting of 100 people. Each salesperson is capable of selling
on an average 4 items per month. Based on your experience you have observed that the standard
deviation of sales made is 1.
(a) What is the expected sales made by the organization in a month?
(b) What is the probability that the total sales in the month exceeds 410 items? (State your
assumptions clearly.)
45. A volunteer tourist guide at a heritage site in India does not charge a fee for her services.
However, she accepts tips provided by the tourists. For every tourist she guides she receives either
a tip of 0 or 100 or 200 rupees with equal probabilities (i.e., = 1/3). Assume that this is her only
source of income. For questions a,b,c, assume that in a year she guides 5000 tourists.
(a) What is her expected annual income?
(b) What is the standard deviation of the annual income?
(c) What is the probability that her income during the year will exceed Rs. 6,00,000?
(d) Suppose that she wants to target an annual income of at least 600,000 in the sense that the
probability of her income falling below 600,000 should be less than 5%, then at least how many
tourists should she target to guide during the year?
46. According to a job website, every month around 20,000 people register in their website, and
about 60% of them get placed within two weeks. If each person gets placed independently with
probability 0.6 within two weeks, what is the probability that at least 13,000 people get placed
within two weeks? What about 15,000?
47. Errors in each page in books from a publishing house are distributed as Poisson with rate 2,
independent of the other pages. A proof-reading software can detect up to 2 errors per page. That
is, if a page contains up to 2 errors, the proof-reading software can detect all the errors in that page,
if any. But if a page contains more than 2 errors, 2 of them are detected, while the rest pass
undetected.
(a) Compute the expected number of errors detected from one page. Also compute the
corresponding variance.

8
 (b) Compute an approximate probability that at least 65 errors are detected from the first 50 pages
of a book. Clearly mention the results/assumptions used.

Monte Carlo Exercises

1. Two teams, say the Celtics and the Cavs, are playing a seven game series. The Cavs are a better
team and have a 60% chance of winning each game. Using 10000 Monte Carlo simulations, compute
the probability that the Celtics win at least one game in the series.
2. Consider two fair dice rolled once. Let the number on the first die be X and the number on the
second die be Y. Using 10000 Monte Carlo replications, obtain the distribution of X+Y. Also compute
P(X+Y > 9).
3. Solve Problems #15 and #16 using Monte Carlo simulations.
4. Solve the Monty Hall problem using Monte Carlo simulations. You can find a solution here:
https://rafalab.github.io/dsbook/probability.html#monty-hall-problem, but it is not very efficient.
Can you improve upon it?
5. The distribution of IQ scores is approximately normally distributed. The average is 100 and the
standard deviation is 15. Suppose you want to know the distribution of the highest IQ across all
graduating classes if 10,000 people are born each in your school district. Run a Monte Carlo
simulation with B=1000 generating 10,000 IQ scores and keeping the highest. Make a histogram.
6. Obtain the histograms of the distributions corresponding to Problem # 46.
7. Solve Problem # 50 using Monte Carlo simulations.