Problem Set- Random Variable, Expectations, Variance

1. Accidentally, two depleted batteries got into a set of five batteries. To remove the two
depleted batteries, the batteries are tested one by one in a random order. Let the random
variable X denote the number of batteries that must be tested to find the two depleted
batteries. What is the probability mass function of X?
2. You roll a fair dice twice. Let the random variable X be the product of the outcomes of
the two rolls. What is the probability mass function of X? What are the expected value
and the standard deviation of X?
3. The following game is offered. There are 10 cards face-down numbered 1 through 10.
You can pick one card. Your payoff is $0.50 if the number on the card is less than 5 and
is the dollar value on the card otherwise. What are the expected value and the standard
deviation of your payoff?
4. A lot of 8 TV sets includes 3 defectives. If 4 of the sets are chosen for shipment to a
hotel, how many defective sets can they expect?
5. A group of m people simultaneously enter an elevator at the ground floor. Each person
randomly chooses one of the r floors 1, 2, . . . , r as the exit floor, where the choices of the
persons are independent of each other. The elevator only stops on a floor if at least one
person wants to exit on that floor. No other people enter the elevator at any of the floors
1, 2, . . . , r. What are the expected value and the standard deviation of the number of
stops the elevator will make?
6. The density function of the continuous random variable X is given by f(x) = c(x + x) for
0 < x < 1 and f(x) = 0 otherwise. What is the constant c?
7. Tou roll a fair dice twice. Let the random variable X be the product of the outcomes of
the 2 rolls. What are the E(X) and Var(X)?
8. Let Y be a continuous random variable with PDF g(y)=2y, 0<y<1; Find CDF.
9. Z has a pdf P(Z=z)=
; z=0,1,2,.n. If Y=Z/n, find the
probability function of Y.
10. A random sample of 4 policy-holders is taken from a group of 8, comprising 3 men and 5
women. Find the probability function of X, the number of female policy holders.
11. PDF of X is given by
f(x)=k.

= 0, o.w.
Find (i) k, (ii) P(0.5
(iii)
12. A continuous RV X has the following CDF:

Find its PDF.

13. Find the CDF of a RV whose PDF is:

14. The RV X has the following PDF:

, (i) directly from PDF

(ii) Using CDF.
15. Find expectation of X if PDF of X is given by
, fpr -1, 0, 1,3
16. Find E(X) and E(X2) if
, x>0.
17. Find variance of X if X has a pdf 2
, x>0.
18. An urn contains five chips, two red and three white. Suppose that two are drawn out at
random, without replacement. Let X denote the number of red chips in the sample. Find
Var(X).
19. A lot of 7 components is sampled by a quality inspector; the lot contains 4 good
components and 3 defective components. A sample of 3 is taken by the inspector. Find
the expected value of the number of good components in this sample.
20. Let X be the random variable that denotes the life in hours of a certain electronic device.
The probability density function is
f(x)=

, x>0.

= 0, o.w.
Find the expected life of this type of device.
21. The weekly demand for Pepsi, in thousands of liters, from a local chain of efficiency
stores, is a continuous random variable X having the probability density
f(x)= 2(x-1), 1<x<2
= 0, o.w.
Find the mean and variance of X.
22. Suppose that X is a random variable for which the
m.g.f. is as fotllows:
m(t)= 1/5
for < t <.
Find the probability distribution of X. Hint: It is a simple discrete distribution.

Problem Set- Discrete Distributions

1. An information technology center uses nine aging disk drives for storage. The probability
that any one of them is out of service is 0.06. For the center to function properly, at least
seven of the drives must be available. What is the probability that the computing center
can get its work done?
2. The junior mathematics class at Superior High School knows that the probability of
making a 600 or greater on the SAT Reasoning Test in Mathematics is 0.231, while the
similar probability for the Critical Reading Test is 0.191. The math students issue a
challenge to their math-averse classmates. Each group will select four students and have
them take the respective test. The mathematics students will win the challenge if more of
their members exceed 600 on the mathematics test than do the other students on the
Critical Reading Test. What is the probability that the mathematics students win the
challenge?
3. The probability that a certain kind of component will survive a given test is . Find the
probability that exactly 2 of the next 4 components tested survive.
4. The probability that a patient recovers from a rare blood disease is 0.4. If 15 people are
known to have contracted this disease, what is the probability that (a) at least 10 survive
(b) form 3 to 8 survives and (c) exactly 5 survive?
5. A committee of size 5 is to be selected at random from 3 chemists and 5 physicists. Find
the probability distribution for the number of chemists on the committee.
6. Lots of 40 components each are called acceptable if they contain no more than 3
defectives. The procedure for sampling the lot is to select 5 components at random and to
reject the lot if a defective is found. What is the probability that exactly 1 defective is
found in the sample if there are 3 defectives in the entire lot?
7. Find the probability that a person tossing 3 coins will get either all heads or all tails for the
2nd time on the 5th Toss.
8. In a certain manufacturing process it is known that on the average, 1 in every 100 items is
defective. What is the probability that the 5th item inspected is the first defective item
found?
9. At busy time a telephone exchange is very near capacity, so callers have difficulty placing
their calls. It may be of interest to know the number of attempts necessary in order to gain
a connection. Suppose that we let p=0.05 be the probability of a connection during the
busy time. What is the probability that 5 attempts are necessary for a successful call?

10. During a laboratory experiment the average number of radioactive particles passing
through a counter in 1 millisecond is 4. What is the probability that 6 particles enter the
counter in a given millisecond?
11. 10 is the average number of oil tankers arriving each day at a certain port city. The
facilities at the port can handle at most 15 tankers per day. What is the probability that on
a given day tankers have to be turned away?
12. In a manufacturing process where glass products are produced, defects or bubbles occur,
occasionally rendering the piece undesirable for marketing. It is known that, on average, 1
in every 1000 of these items produced has one or more bubbles. What is the probability
that a random sample of 8000 will yield fewer than 7 items possessing bubbles?
13. The number of traffic accidents per week in a small city has a Poisson distribution with
mean 3. What is the probability of exactly 2 accidents occurring in 2 weeks?

14. The probability that a machine produces a defective item is 0.02. Each item is checked as
it is produced. Assuming that these are independent trials, what is the probability that at
least 100 items must be checked to find one that is defective?
15. What is the probability that the 5th head is observed on the 10th independent flip of a coin?
16. It is known that screws produced by a certain machine will be defective with probability
0.01 independently of each other. If we randomly pick 10 screws produced by this
machine, what is the probability that at least two screws will be defective?
17. A manufacturer of inkjet printers claims that only 5% of their printers require repairs
within the first year. If of a random sample of 18 of the printers, four required repairs
within the first year, does this tend to refute or support the manufacturers claim?
18. You have a thoroughly shuffled deck of 52 cards. Each time you choose one card from the
deck. The drawn card is put back in the deck and all 52 cards are again thoroughly
shuffled. You continue this procedure until you have seen all four different aces. What are
the expected value and the standard deviation of the number of times you have to draw a
card until you have seen all four different aces?
19. A quiz consists of 24 multiple choice questions. Each question has 5 possible answers, only
one of which is correct. If you answer the questions completely based on guessing, what is the
probability that
a) You will answer exactly 4 wrong?
b) You will answer exactly 4 correctly?
c) You will answer at least 20 correctly?
d) You will answer at most 3 wrong?
e) You will answer at most 3 correctly?

20. A bag contains R red balls and W white balls. Each time you take one ball out of the bag
at random and without replacement. You stop as soon as all red balls have been taken out
of the bag. What is the expected number of white balls remaining in the bag when you
stop?
21. After correcting 50 pages of a book, a proof reader finds that there are on an average 2
errors per 5 pages. How many pages would one expect to find with 0,1,2,3 and 4 errors in
1000 pages of the first print of the book?
22. A certain airline finds that 4% of the persons making reservations on a certain flight will
not show up for the flight. Consequently their policy is to sell 75 reserved seats on a plane
that has exactly 73 seats. What is the probability that for every person who shows up for a
flight there is a seat available?