Addis Ababa University

College of Natural and Computational Sciences

Department of Statistics
Probability & Statistics for Engineers (Stat 2171) Worksheet I
Note concerning group assignment:
Group formation: you can form groups with not more than 5 students.
Assignment Questions: 1, 3,6,10,13,14,17,23,25,30
Due Date: before two days you sit for mid-exam
1. A student would like to estimate the average monthly pocket money of pre-engineering students
in Addis Ababa University. He collected data from a sample of 50 students. Based on this
information state the

a. population, c. statistic,
b. parameter, d. variable

2. Classify the following sentences as belonging to the area of descriptive statistics or inferential
statistics.
a) The data revealed that the median income of the students in AAU was 5000.
b) At least 5% of all killings reported last year in city X were due to terrorists.
c) A hypothesis test showed that a statistically significant difference in exam scores between the
two groups.
d) A student concludes that his chance of passing the first year is at least 80% based on the
statistics that 75% of the freshmen were effective last year.
3. Classify each of the following first as qualitative or quantitative and then as nominal, ordinal,
interval or ratio scale of measurements.
a) Time in minutes for swimmers to complete a 50-meter race.
b) Months of the year Meskerm, Tikimit, etc.
c) Socio-economic status of a family classified as low, middle and upper class.
d) Blood type of individuals, A, B, AB and O.
e) Different regions in Ethiopia codes as 1, 2, 3, etc.
f) Amount of wheat in kg. produced in Ethiopia last year.
4. Which diagram is most appropriate for each of the following dataset? Draw the diagrams.
a) Students enrolled to a department from year 1 to 3

Year Sex
Male Female
1 50 20
2 45 15
3 40 10

b) Net profit (in million Birr) earned by different companies in 1980.

Company Net profit
A 20
B -15
C 30
5. A survey taken in a restaurant shows that the following number of cups of coffee consumed with
each meal. Construct an ungrouped frequency distribution for the following data.
0 2 2 1 1 2 3 53 2 2 2 1 0 1 2
4 2 0 1 0 1 4 42 2 0 1 1 5
6. The marks of 30 students in statistics (out of 100) are given below. Construct a frequency
distribution including the class boundaries, class marks, the relative frequencies, the less than and
more than cumulative frequencies.
84,79, 65, 78, 78, 80, 67, 68, 73, 66,65, 86, 88, 75,89, 67, 82, 73, 87, 61,57, 81, 62, 77, 85, 78, 56,
55, 48, 72
7. Construct a frequency distribution if the class marks of the frequency distribution are 6.5, 8.5,
10.5, 12.5 and 14.5 with corresponding frequencies 8, 12, 22, 17 and 3.
8. If the arithmetic mean and the geometric mean of two observations are 6.5 and 6 respectively,
find the values of the observations.
9. If the harmonic mean and geometric mean of two observations are respectively 8 and 10, what
will be the arithmetic mean of the two observations?
10. During four successive years, a home owner purchased oil for her furnace at respective costs of
0.80, 0.90, 1.05 and 1.25 birr per gallon. What was the average cost of oil over the 4-years
period?
11. The price of DELL computer is assumed to be increased by 40% in value in the first year, 25% in
the second year and 10% per annum for the next two years; each percentage is being calculated on
the increasing value. What is the average percentage increase?
12. The price of a commodity increased by 5% from 1996 to 1997, by 8% from 1998 to 1999 and by
77% from 2000 to 2001. What was the average yearly price increase?
13. The following table shows the distribution of a group of families according to their expenditure
per week. The median and the mode of the distribution are known to be 25.50 birr and 24.50 birr
respectively. Two frequency values are however missing from the table.

Expenditure(CI) 1-10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50

No.of families(fi) 14 f2 27 f4 15

Find, A) the missing frequencies. B) The mean. C) The variance

D) Compute the value below which 25% of the observations lie.

E) Compute the value above which 25% of the observations lie.
14. Two sections were given an examination of a certain course. The following information was
given.
Value Section 1 Section 2
Mean 72 85
Stan.deviation 6 7

i. Which section is more consistent in its performance? Why?

ii. Student A from section 1 scored 75 and student B from section 2 scored 90, then who
performed better? Why?
15. Suppose that a newly married couple is planning to have three children.
a) List the elements of the sample space using M for male and F for female.
b) List the elements of the sample space if the sample points in the sample space represent
the number of females.
16. If a multiple choice test consists of 4 questions each with 4 possible answers of which one is
correct,
a) In how many different ways can a student provides answers to all questions?
b) In how many different ways can a student provides answers for each question and gets all the
questions wrong?
17. Sara is going out for lunch. The lunch menu has a choice of 5 soups, 6 salads, and 3 pasta dishes.
If she can pick one soup, one salad, and one pasta dish, how many different combinations can she
choose?
18. An engineer must select three tests to perform in a certain order on a manufactured part. He has a
choice of seven tests. How many ways can he perform three different tests?
19. In how many ways can a committee of 4 be formed from 10 men and 12 women if it is to have
a) 2 men and 2 women? c) 4 men?
b) 1 man and 3 women? d) 4 people regardless of sex?
20. Four married couples have bought 8 seats in a row for a show. In how many different ways can
they be seated
a. If each couple is to sit together.
b. If all the women sit together.
 c. If all the women sit together to the right of all the men?
21. Let A, B, and C be events.
i. Write down expressions for the events where
(a) At least two of A, B, and C occur. (b) Exactly two of A, B, and C occur.
(c) At most two of A, B, and C occur. (d) Exactly one of A, B, and C occurs.
ii. If A and B are independent, A and C are independent, A and B U C are independent, then
show that A and B n C are independent

22. Consider four objects, say a, b, c and d. suppose that the order in which these objects are listed
represents the outcome of an experiment. Let the events A and B be defined as follows: A = {a is
in the first position}; B = {b is in the second position}.
a. List all elements of the sample space.
b. List all elements of the events AnB and AUB.
23. A lot consists of 10 good articles, 4 with minor defects and 2 with major defects.
i. One article is chosen at random. Find the probability that
a. It has no defects, c) It is either good or has major defects.
b. It has no major defects,
ii. Two articles are chosen (without replacement), Find the probability that
a. Both are good c. At most one is good
b. Both have major defects d. Exactly one is good
24. Two defective tubes get mixed up with two good ones. The tubes are tested one by one, until both
defectives are found. What is the probability the last defective tube is obtained on the: a.
second test? b) Third test? c) fourth
25. If the permutation of the word W HIT E is selected at random, find the probability that the
permutation

a) Begins with a consonant

b) Ends with a vowel

26. A lot consists of 20 defective and 80 non-defective items from which two items are chosen
without replacement. Events A & B are defined as A = {the first item chosen is defective}, B =
{the second item chosen is defective}.
a) What is the probability that both items are defective?
b) What is the probability that the second item is defective?

while P(A ∪ B) = 0.7. Let P(B) = P

27. Let A, B and C be events associated with an experiment and suppose that P(A) = 0.2, P(C)=0.3

a) For what choice of P are A, B and C mutually exclusive?

b) For what choice of P are A, B and C independent?
28. If two events, A and B, are such that P ( A )=0.5 , P ( B )=0.3∧P ( A ∩ B )=0.1 , find the
following:
a . P ( A|B ) b . P ( B|A ) c . P ( A| A ∪ B ) d . P ( A| A ∩ B ) e . P( A ∩ B∨ A ∪ B)
29. An item is manufactured by three machines A, B and C. Out of the total number of items
manufactured during a specified period, 40% are manufactured on A, 30% on B and 30% on C.
2% of the items produced on A and 2% of items produced on B are defective, and 3% of these
produced on C are defective. All the items are stored at one go down. One item is drawn at
random and is found to be defective.
a. Find the probability of selecting defective items?
b. Find the probability that defective item came from machine A?
30. One bag contains 4 white balls and 3 black balls, and the second bag contains 3 white balls and 5
black balls. One ball is drawn at random from the second bag and placed in the first bag. What is
the probability that a ball now drawn from the first bag is white?