FACULTY OF SCIENCE

DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS & OPERATIONS RESEARCH

FEBRUARY 2021 EXAMINATION SESSION

SOR1211 Probability Saturday, 20th February 2021

Examination time: 10:00 – 11:30 + 45 extra minutes for uploading/downloading

In case of difficulty during the assessment (issues with the exam paper, electricity power cut,
internet connection, etc), during office hours you may contact the Faculty of Science on the
following:

Main Office Telephone Numbers: 2340 2450; 2340 3785

Office Number of the Secretary: 23402457
Faculty Mobile Number: 79010274
Email address: science@um.edu.mt

Please note that for immediate feedback it is best to communicate using telephone. Use email only
if there are circumstances when the use of telephone is not possible. Keep your mobile phone handy
since important communications during the examination may be communicated by the University
through SMS.

Students may not obtain or seek to obtain advantage in any form of assessment or give or endeavour
to give assistance to other students. Students who are found guilty of a breach of the University
Assessment Regulations are liable to disciplinary action which may result in the examination being
cancelled and other consequences.

By sitting for this examination, I declare that I am aware of the provisions of the regulations
regarding conduct during examinations and I pledge to observe them. Students may be subject to
an additional oral examination to safeguard against plagiarism, collusion or other misdemeanours.

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Other Important Points:
 Attempt any number of questions. Each question carries 28 marks.
 You can submit ONLY handwritten answers by writing down your answers on A4 sheets of
paper.
 Write down your name and ID number on the first page of your script.
 Each page and each question need to be clearly numbered. A space for marking should be
left on the right-hand side of every page. Kindly refer to the template that has been sent to
you a few days before the examination period started.
 Any material sent needs to be clearly legible. Kindly make sure that photos are taken in good
lighting conditions.
 Solutions pertaining to the same question should be presented together.
 Every question should start on a new page.
 Unless otherwise stated, you may use the lecture notes or other material provided to answer
these questions. You may also use any desired software of choice to arrive to the requested
answer. No credit will be given to examples lifted off lecture notes, tutorial sheets and past
papers.
 Answers should be given to 2 decimal places, where appropriate.
 Once you have completed the examination, you are to send your answers in one pdf using
software such as Adobe Scan app, FastScanner and Microsoft Office Lens app and upload it
within the time indicated for the examination. The name you should assign to the pdf file you
are going to upload to Wiseflow should be the study-unit code.
 You have been allowed extra time for downloading the examination paper and uploading
your responses. Make sure that you upload the correct material.

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1. a. In how many permutations of the word BARREL are the two R’s
i. together? [2 marks]
ii. separate? [3 marks]

b. A and B are two events such that B ' is the complement of event B. Prove that:
i. P( B ')  1  P( B) , [2 marks]
ii. P( A)  P( B).P( A B)  P( B ').P( A B ') . [3 marks]

c. 500 students in a secondary school all chose at least one science subject. 46 chose
Biology only, 170 chose Physics only, 143 chose Physics and Biology, 27 chose Biology
and Chemistry and 151 chose Chemistry. The number of students choosing Chemistry
only was four times the number of students choosing all the three science subjects.
i. By drawing a Venn diagram, find the number of students choosing all the three
science subjects. [4 marks]
ii. Find the probability that a student picked at random will choose at least two science
subjects. [2 marks]

d. A, B and C are three independent events. If P( A)  0.2 , P( B)  0.3 and P(C )  0.25 ,
evaluate these probabilities:
i. P( A  B  C ) , [2 marks]
ii P[( A ' B ') C ] , [2 marks]
ii. P[( A ' B) C '] . [2 marks]

e. Items are produced by three machines A, B and C in the ratio 5:3:4. The percentages of
defective items produced by the machines are respectively 2%, 5% and 3%.
i. Given that an item is defective, find the probability for each machine being the
cause for the fault. [3 marks]
ii. The cost of repair for items produced by machines A, B and C are respectively €8, €7 and
€9. Find the expected cost of repair. [3 marks]

2. a. The following table shows the number of students who passed a compulsory examination on
their first, second, third or fourth attempt.

Number of attempts 1 2 3 4 5 or more

Number of students 340 51 8 1 0

i. Explain why the geometric distribution can provide a suitable fit to variable X ‘the
number of attempts needed to pass the examination’ has a geometric distribution.
[3 marks]
ii. Fit a geometric distribution to this data and calculate the expected frequencies for
this geometric distribution. [5 marks]

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 b. If X is a continuous random variable with probability density function f  x  and a, b are
constants, prove that
i. var  a   0 , [3 marks]
ii. var  aX  b   a var  X  .
2
[5 marks]

c. A continuous random variable X has the following density function

f  x   kx ln x for 1  x  e .
4
i. Show that k  . [4 marks]
e 1
2

ii. Find E ( X ) and var( X ) . [8 marks]

3. a A company has five telephone operators and the probability that a telephone operator is busy
with an incoming call is 0.45.
i. Explain why the variable X ‘the number of busy operators with incoming calls’ can be
suitably modelled using a binomial distribution. [3 marks]
ii. Find the probability that at any instance,
 all of the telephone operators are busy, [2 marks]
 less than three telephone operators are busy, [3 marks]
 more than three telephone operators are busy. [3 marks]

b. A random variable X has a geometric distribution with parameter p. If var  X   3.75 , find:
i. the value of p, [3 marks]
ii. E ( X ) , [2 marks]
iii. P( X  3) . [3 marks]

c. An insurance company has a policy which insures a house against fire. The records of
one particular period of 30 days yielded the following results.

Number of claims 0 1 2 3 4 5 or more

No of days 8 11 6 4 1 0

i. Fit a Poisson distribution to this data. [3 marks]

ii. Calculate the expected frequencies for this Poisson distribution. [6 marks]

4. a. A manufacturing plant finds that, on average, a machine in the plant requires servicing every
9.5 hours. Assuming that the time between repairs is exponentially distributed, find the
probability that the time between one servicing and the next is:
i. less than 7.6 hours, [2 marks]
ii. more than 12.4 hours, [2 marks]
iii. between 8.1 and 11.9 hours. [2 marks]

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 b. The weights and heights of a group of students are each independent and have an
approximate normal distribution with means 55.1kg and 140.3cm and standard deviations
of 7.2kg and 8.1cm respectively.
i. Find the probability that a student chosen at random will have:
 a weight greater than 57.6kg, [2 marks]
 a height greater than 145.3cm, [2 marks]
 both a weight greater than 57.6kg and a height greater than 145.3cm. [2 marks]
ii. If 15 students are picked at random find the probability that less than five students
have both a weight greater than 57.6kg and a height greater than 145.3cm.
[4 marks]

c. The weights of mice are normally distributed with mean  and standard deviation  . If
the middle 80% of the mice weigh between 45 grams and 60 grams, find the values of 
and  . [6 marks]

d. A coin is biased so that the probability of getting a head is twice the probability of getting a
tail. If the coin is tossed 500 times, use the normal approximation to the binomial distribution
to find the probability that the number of heads is more than 340. [6 marks]

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