UNIVERSITY OF MALTA

FACULTY OF SCIENCE
Department of Statistics & Operations Research

January/February 2019 Examination Session

SOR1211 – PROBABILITY Monday 28th January 2019

Time of Examination: 10:00 – 11:35

 Attempt any number of questions, each question carries 28 marks.
 Aids allowed: calculator, computer and statistical booklet for non-statistics students are
provided.
 Do not use your personal UM IT account. Log in the computer using the Username and
Password provided. Log off when the examination is over.
 Data file/s are located in Q:/SOR1211 – Probability Jan 2019.
 You may perform workings using your desired software application. Remember to frequently
save any temporary workings in Z:\Exam to safeguard your progress.
Note: The content of the Z:\Exam folder is NOT collected by the examiner and will not be
assessed.
 Answers obtained by computer software should be written on the script together with any
relevant working.
 Answers should be given to 2 decimal places where appropriate.

1. a. Show that for any two events A and B in a sample space S :

P( A  B)  P( A)  P( B)  P( A  B) . [5 marks]

b. Assume that a device contains 3 components, each of which must be tested with respect
to its functional condition. Consider the following events:
A : The 1st component needs replacement,
B : The 2nd component needs replacement,
C : The 3rd component needs replacement.

Assume that A , B and C are independent and that P( A)  0.5 and P( A  B)  0.56 .
i. Show that P( B)  0.12 . [5 marks]
ii. Find the value of P( Bc | Ac ) . [2 marks]

If P(C )  0.4 , find the value of the following probabilities:

iii. P (C  A)  B , [2 marks]
iv. P ( Bc  C c ) | A , [2 marks]
v. P C c | ( B  A)  . [2 marks]

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 c. The new members of staff in an industrial company are attending a Training Program (TP)
according to the level of their expertise. The Advanced TP is being attended by the 65% of the
new members of staff, while the Intermediate TP and the Introductory TP are being attended
by the 18% and 17% of the new workers, respectively. The probability that a worker will meet
the requirements of its position given that he/she attended: (a) an Advanced TP is 0.8, (b) an
Intermediate TP is 0.7, and, (c) an Introductory TP is 0.6. Find the probability that a new
worker attended:
i. an intermediate TP given that the requirements are met. [5 marks]
ii. an introductory TP given that the requirements are not met. [5 marks]

2. a. If X is a discrete random variable and c is a constant value, prove that:

i. E( X  c)  E( X )  c , [3 marks]
ii. Var ( X )  E ( X )  [ E ( X )] ,
2 2
[2 marks]
iii. Var ( X  c)  Var ( X ) . [2 marks]

b. The probability mass function of a discrete random variable X is given by:

P( X  x)  k x( x 2  1) , for x  1, 2,3, 4,5 .
i. Find the value of k . [3 marks]
ii. Find the cumulative distribution function of X . [3 marks]
( )
iii. Find E X and Var  X  . [4 marks]

c. A continuous random variable X has probability density function given by:

 k ln x
 1 x  3
f ( x)   x 2 .

 0 elsewhere

i. Find the value of k . [3 marks]

ii. Find the cumulative distribution function of X . [2 marks]
iii. Find P(1.5  X  2.5) . [3 marks]
iv. Find E( X ) and Var  X  . [3 marks]

3. a. Let P( X  x)  p(1  p) x1 be a probability mass function defined for x  1, 2,3,... , where
0  p  1 . Prove that:

i.  P( X  x)  1 ,
x 1
[2 marks]

ii. E( X )  1 p , [4 marks]
iii. Var ( X )  (1  p) p 2 . [5 marks]

M.Kontorinaki - SOR1211- January/February 2019 Page 2 of 3

 b. Assume that 20% of the university student population are postgraduate students. If 30
students are selected at random, with replacement, find the probability that:
i Exactly 10 students are reading for a postgraduate degree.
[4 marks]
ii. At least 27 students are reading for a postgraduate degree.
[3 marks]

c. The following table records the number of brothers and/or sisters that each person out of
a random selection of 100 persons has.

Number of siblings 0 1 2 3 4 5 or more

Frequency 44 38 12 4 2 0

i. Fit a Poisson distribution to the above data. [4 marks]

ii. Calculate the expected frequencies given by this distribution.
[6 marks]

4. a. Show that for a continuous random variable X with range {x : x  0} , the function
f ( x)  e x , where x  0 can be used as a Probability Density Function (PDF).
Furthermore, show that with this PDF, we have that E ( X )  1  and Var ( X )  1  2 .
[9 marks]

b. The amount of time a lecturer spends with each one of his/her students is assumed to
have an exponential distribution with an average time equal to 15 minutes. Find the
probability that a student has a meeting with the lecturer
i. more than 25 minutes, [3 marks]
ii. less than 5 minutes, [3 marks]
iii. between 10 and 20 minutes. [3 marks]

c. The weights of cats are normally distributed. If the middle 80% of cats’ weight lies between
4.5kg and 6kg, find the mean weight and the standard deviation of this random variable.
[5 marks]

d. A door-to-door salesman rings the doorbell of 150 households in a neighbourhood. Let X

be the random variable representing the number of houses opening the door for the
salesman, which is binomially distributed with parameter p  0.3 . Use the normal
approximation to the binomial distribution to find the probability that X is equal to the
expected value E ( X ) of X . [5 marks]

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