MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS, HOCHIMINH CITY

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
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STATISTICS FOR BUSINESS

ASSIGNMENT
Release Date: 9AM Thursday 22/12/2022
Due Date: 9AM Wednesday 5/1/2023.

Instructions:
Please read and follow these instructions closely.

• This is a group assignment. You are not allowed to share your work with people
outside your group.

• Each group (5 maximum) will submit a report which contains all the solutions,
calculations, diagrams, analysis. The first page of the report should be the cover
page which includes the names and details of all group members.

• The report must be typed-written.

• Please report to the lecturer if there are group members who are not doing their
fair share of work. Members of the same group do not necessarily get the same
marks.

• On the due date, a representative from each group will hand in the report in class
to the lecturer.

• Deadline should be strictly adhered to. Late submissions will be penalized at 10%
per day.

• This assignment consists of two sections for a maximum of 20 points.

1
1 Problem Solving [12]

Problem 1 [2]
The probability that a man leaves his umbrella in any shop he visits is 1/5. After
visiting two shops in succession, he finds he has left his umbrella in one of them. What
is the probability that he left his umbrella in the second shop?

Problem 2 [2]
You have two coins: one is a normal fair coin with heads on one side and tails on the
other. The second coin has heads on both sides. You randomly pick a coin and flip it.
The result comes up heads. What is the probability that you chose the fair coin?

Problem 3 [2]
The table below shows the probability distribution of a discrete random variable X.
x 0 1 2 3
P (X = x) 0.1 p q 0.2

a) Given that E(X) = 1.5, find the values of p and q.

b) Calculate Var(X).

Problem 4 [3]
A shopkeeper sells electric fans. The demand for fans follows a Poisson distribution
with mean 3.2 per week.

a) Find the probability that the demand is exactly 2 fans in any one week.

b) The shopkeeper has 4 fans in his shop at the beginning of a week. Find the
probability that this will not be enough to satisfy the demand for fans in that
week.

c) Given instead that he has n fans in his shop at the beginning of a week, find, by
trial and error, the least value of n for which the probability of his not being able
to satisfy the demand for fans in that week is less than 0.05.

Problem 5 [3]
A factory produces a very large number of steel bars. The lengths of these bars are
normally distributed with 33% of them measuring 20.06 cm or more and 12% of them
measuring 20.02 cm or less.

2
 a) Find the mean and standard deviation of the normal distribution.

b) Estimate the proportion of steel bars which measure 20.03 cm or more.

c) The bars are acceptable if they measure between 20.02 cm and 20.08 cm. What
percentage are rejected as being outside the acceptable range?

2 Data Analysis [8]

You are given the data of the height of 1000 American men and women in the file
"Heights" that accompanied this assignment.

a) Calculate the descriptive statistics and draw the histograms for the whole data
set and for each group defined by gender.

b) Compare and contrast the distribution of the height of the two groups. Your
answers should be supported by a few appropriate diagrams.

c) Test at 5% level of significance whether the average height of American men is

178 cm.

d) In a previous study, it has been found that on average American men is 14 cm

taller than women. Test this hypothesis at 5% level of significance.

—————–END OF ASSIGNMENT—————–