STAT 430/510 Tony Cai Fall 2017

Practice Problems for Midterm 1

Problem 1. A standard deck of 52 cards is shuffled and a 5-card poker hand is dealt.
(a). What is the probability that the hand is a full house (i.e., a triple and a pair)?

(b). What is the probability that the hand has two pairs?

Problem 2. In a certain community, 8% of all adults over 50 have diabetes. Suppose a

health service in this community correctly diagnoses 95% of all persons with diabetes as
having the disease and incorrectly diagnoses 2% of all persons without diabetes as having
the disease. Find the probabilities that

(a). the community health service will diagnose a randomly selected adult over 50 as
having diabetes;

(b). a person over 50 diagnosed by the health service as having diabetes actually has the
disease.

Problem 3. You and two of your friends are in a group of 10 people. The group is randomly
split up into two groups of 5 people each.
(a). What is the probability that you and both of your friends are in the same group?

(b). What is the probability that you are in one group and your two friends are together
in another group?

Problem 4. Ten balls, labeled R1 , R2 , ..., R10 , are randomly arranged in a single line. What
is the probability that R1 , R2 and R3 are in adjacent positions?

Problem 5. Urn A contains 2 white and 4 red balls, whereas urn B contains 1 white and
1 red ball. A ball is randomly chosen from urn A and put in urn B, and a ball is then
randomly selected from urn B.
(a). What is the probability that the ball selected from urn B is white?

(b). What is the conditional probability that the transferred ball was white given that a
white ball is selected from urn B?

Problem 6. One die has 4 red and 2 white sides; a second has 2 red and 4 white sides.

(a). If we pick a die at random and roll it, what is the probability the result is a red side?

(b). If the first result is a red side and we roll the same die again, what is the probability
of a second red side?

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STAT 430/510 Tony Cai Fall 2017

Problem 7. A and B alternate rolling a pair of dice, stopping either when A rolls the sum
9 or when B rolls the sum 6. Assuming that A rolls first, find the probability that the final
roll is made by A.

Problem 8. In a certain community, 36% of the families own a dog, 30% of the families
own a cat, and 22% of the families that own a dog also own a cat. What is
(a). the probability that a randomly selected family owns both a dog and a cat?
(b). the conditional probability that a randomly selected family owns a dog given that it
owns a cat?

Problem 9. Suppose that four dice are rolled. Let M be the maximum of four numbers
rolled.
(a). Find the distribution of M .
(b). Find E(M ).
(c). Find Var(M ).
(d). Let S be the sum of the smallest three numbers among the four dices. Find E(S).

Problem 10. Consider 3 urns. Urn A contains 2 white and 4 red balls; Urn B contains 8
white and 4 red balls; and Urn C contains 1 white and 3 red balls. If 1 ball is selected from
each urn, what is the probability that the ball chosen from urn A was white, given that
exactly 2 white balls were selected?

Problem 11. Each time Paula plays a game of Floople she has a probability of 1/2 of
winning $1 and probability 1/2 of losing $1. She begins with only $1 in her purse and
decides to play Floople until either she has no more money or until she has played 5 times,
whichever comes first.
(a). What is the probability she will succeed in playing 5 times before she has no more
money left?
(b). What is her expected gain or loss after she stops playing?
(c). What is the standard deviation of the gain or loss she has after she stops playing?

Problem 12. Two coins, A and B, show heads with respective probabilities 1/2 and 3/4.
One of these coins is randomly selected. It is tossed once and lands heads.
(a). What is the probability that coin B was the one tossed?
(b). Suppose the selected coin is tossed one more time and lands heads again. What is
the probability that the selected coin is coin B?