Probability, Statistics and Queuing Theory
Practice Assignment 1
(Dr Vivek Vijay, IITJ)
1. Let A and B be two events with probabilities P (A) = 1/2 and P (B c ) = 1/4.
Can A and B be mutually exclusive events?
2. In the discrete space S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} suppose each point has probability
1/6. If A1 = {1, 2, 3, 4} and A2 = A3 = {4, 5, 6} then P (A1 ∩ A2 ∩ A3) =
P (A1)P (A2)P (A3) but the events are not independent.
3. Two dice are thrown. Calculate the probability that the sum of the faces is (a)
equal to 7 (b) more than to 3 (c) an even number.
4. Let S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} with uniform probability. Show that if A, B ∈ S are
independent and A has 4 elements, then B must have 0, 3 or 6 elements.
5. Two players A and B draw balls one at a time alternatively from a box con-
taining m white balls and n black balls. Suppose the player who picks the first
white ball wins the game. What is the probability that the player who starts
the game will win?
6. Consider the sample space
S = {(1, 2, 3), (1, 3, 2), (2, 1, 3), (2, 3, 1), (3, 1, 2), (3, 2, 1), (1, 1, 1), (2, 2, 2), (3, 3, 3)}
Assign equal probability to each of the 9 sample points. Let Ai (i = 1, 2, 3)
be the event that the ith place in a sample point is occupied by the number
1. Show that the events A1 , A2 , A3 are pairwise independent but not mutually
independent.
7. Let X be a random variable with values {0, ±1, ±2}. Suppose that P (X =
−2) = P (X = −1) and P (X = 1) = P (X = 2) with the information that
P (X > 0) = P (X < 0) = P (X = 0). Find the probability mass function and
distribution function of the random variable.
8. Let X be a random variable with probability mass function P (X = x) =
(e−2 2x )/x!, x = 0, 1, 2, · · ·. Find the values of E(X), E(X 2 ), E(X 3 ) and E(X 4 ).
9. A student of COEP goes to one of the two canteens on campus, choosing Boat
club canteen 60% of the time and the other canteen 40% of the time. Regardless
of where he goes, he buys a tea 70% of his visits.
1
(a) The next time he goes into a chai shop, what is the probability that he
goes to Boat club canteen and orders a tea?
(b) Are the two events, going to Boat club canteen and ordering a tea are
independent?
(c) If he goes into a chai shop and orders a tea, what is the probability that he
is at the admin side canteen?
(d) What is the probability that he goes to Boat club canteen or orders a tea
or both?
10. A survey of people in a given region showed that 20% were smokers. The
probability of death due to lung cancer, given that a person smoked, was roughly
10 times the probability of death due to lung cancer, given that a person did not
smoke. If the probability of death due to lung cancer in the region is .006, what
is the probability of death due to lung cancer given that a personn is smoker?
11. Suppose that, in a particular city, airport A handles 50% of all airline traffic,
and airports B and C handle 30% and 20%, respectively. The detection rates for
weapons at the three airports are 0.9, 0.8 and 0.85 respectively. If a passenger
at one of the airports is found to be carrying a weapon through the boarding
gate, what is the probability that the passenger is using airport A? AirportC?
12. A dart is thrown randomly inside a circle of radius 5. You can get a prize
worth Rs 100000 by hitting the centre of the circle. If the dart hits inside the
concentric circle of radius 1, you receive Rs 10,000. If it hits the ring between
circles of radius 1 and 2, you receive Rs 5,000. If it hits the ring between circles
of radius 2 and 3, you receive Rs 2,000. If it hits in any other part of the circle
you have to pay some amount a. How much amount a would you be paying for
this game to become fair?
13. Let X be a Poisson random variable with parameter λ.
(a) Find E(cos(θX))
(b) If P (X = 2) = 9P (X = 4) + 90P (X = 6), find the variance of X.
14. Personnel of a company use an online terminal to make routine calculations.
If the time each person spends in a session at a terminal has an exponential
distribution with an average time of 36 minutes, find the probability that a
person
(a) Will spend 30 minutes or less at the terminal
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(b) He will use it for more than one hour
(c) If he has already been at the terminal for 30 minutes, what is the probability
that he will spend more than another hour at the terminal?
15. Two people arrive to meet in the park. Each person is equally likely to arrive,
independent of the other, at 2:00, 2:30 and 3:00 PM. Let X equal the time that
the first person to arrive has to wait, where X is taken equal to 0 if both people
arrive at the same time.
(a) What are the possible values of X?
(b) What are the probabilities that X assumes each of these values?
16. A coin is biased in such a way that P (H) = 3/7 and P (T ) = 4/7. Suppose that
the coin is tossed three consecutive times and let X be the random variable
that indicates the number of heads obtained. Find the distribution function of
the random variable X and calculate E(X).
17. The random variable X has probability density function
8q
f (x) = x(1 − x), 0 < x < 1
π
Obtain the density of Y = 2X − 1.
18. Let X be a random variable with distribution
1 2
f (x) = √ e−x /2 , −∞ < x < ∞
2π
Define Y = eX . Find the pdf of Y .
19. Let X be a uniformly distributed random variable on the interval (0, 4). Cal-
culate the probability that the roots of
2y 2 + 2yX + (X + 1) = 0
are both complex.
20. Let X be a random variable with density function given by: f (x) = cx3 , 0 <
x ≤ 1 and f (x) = (2 − x)3 , 1 < x ≤ 2
(a) Calculate µ = E(X) and σ 2 = V ar(X).
(b) Find P (µ − 2σ < X < µ + 2σ).
