STA2300 Tutorial 6

Binomial Model problems (Module 5)

Use your binomial tables at the back of your study books to answer the following
questions:

1. Suppose X is described by a binomial model with n = 8 and p = 0.2.

Determine the probability that there are:
a. exactly 3 successes;
b. fewer than 5 successes;
c. greater than 6 successes;
d. at least one success;
e. at most 6 successes;
f. no more than 4 successes;
g. exactly 3 failures;
h. less than or equal to 3 failures (NOTE – if a success is p=0.2 then a
failure is (1-p)=(1-0.2)=0.8);
i. no less than 5 failures.

2. Each child born to a particular set of parents has probability 0.25 of having
blood type O. If these parents have 5 children, what is the probability that
exactly 2 have type O blood?

3. You sit a multiple choice exam which is 10 questions long. For each question
there were four options. If you didn’t know any of the answers, what
probability did you have of getting five or more correct?

4. Twelve percent of potential donors at a blood bank are turned away for
various reasons.

a. Out of the next 100 potential donors, how many are expected (ie the
mean) to be turned away?
b. What is the standard deviation of the number who are expected to be
turned away?
c. What is the probability that fewer than five will be turned away?

5. Seventy percent of customers purchasing fuel at a petrol station use a credit

card. In a one hour period, 80 customers purchase fuel. What is the
probability that more than 50 of these customers use a credit card for the
purchase?

STA2300 Data Analysis Tutorial (Module 5) S3, 2009

Multiple choice Questions

Question 1
In order to use the binominal distribution, which of the following conditions are NOT
necessary?
(a) An series of trials with only 2 possible outcomes
(b) A series of N trials
(c) Trials are independent of one another
(d) The number of trials should be no more than 20
(e) There should be a probability of success given for the trials

Question 2
The sum of all terms in any binomial expansion will equal
(a) 1.00
(b) 0.50
(c) This depends on the value of n (number of trials) and p (probability of
success)
(d) 0.00
(e) This can not be determined

Question 3
If an unbiased coin is flipped 5 times, what is the probability of getting exactly 3
heads?
(a) 0.6000
(b) 0.3125
(c) 0.4687
(d) 0.0312
(e) 0.4000

Question 4
If I flip a coin 8 times, to get a tail at least 7 times means
(a) I get 7 tails
(b) I get either 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 tails
(c) I get 1 tail
(d) I get 7 or 8 tails
(e) I get 8 tails

STA2300 Data Analysis Tutorial (Module 5) S3, 2009

SPSS Question
The following output shows that the 60% of people in a recent survey admitted to
studying more than 5 hours per week when studying STA2300 (NOTE – ignore the
frequency column and look just at the % column).

Frequency Percent
Study more
than 5 hours 90 60.0
per week
Study less than
5 hours per 60 40.0
week
Total 150 100.0

If I selected 12 of these people at random and questioned them on their study habits
(Note: the same person could be selected more than once).

(a) What is the probability that at least 10 of the people selected studied more
than 5 hours per week?

(b) What is the expected (that is the “mean”) number of people (out of the 12
selected) who studied more than 5 hours per week?

(c) What is the standard deviation of the number of people (out of the 12
selected) who studied more than 5 hours per week?

(d) If I now select 120 people at random and question them on their study habits,
what is the probability of getting more than 85 people who studied more than
5 hours per week? (Remember to check the appropriate assumptions)

STA2300 Data Analysis Tutorial (Module 5) S3, 2009

Discrete Random Variable Problem

The following table shows the distribution of the number of coffees that STA2300
Springfield students drink on an average day.

y (number of 0 1 2 3
coffees drunk)
Probability 0.05 0.15 0.2 0.6

(a) Is this probability assignment possible? (HINT: What are the 2 criteria that
are needed to prove that a probability assignment is legitimate and have
these criteria been met?)

(b) Calculate the mean number of coffees drunk by STA2300 Springfield

students.

(c) Calculate the standard deviation for the number of coffees drunk by
STA2300 Springfield students.

STA2300 Data Analysis Tutorial (Module 5) S3, 2009

Material to be covered
• SB Module 5: Randomness & Probability

Objectives
• Recognize the connection between probability and proportion in random selection
• Recognize situations where equally-likely outcomes occur and determine
probabilities for simple events in such situations
• Understand the concept of disjoint and independent events
• Make use of the complementary, simple additive and multiplication rules to
calculate the probability of events
• Recognize a numerical-valued variable as a random variable
• Understand the difference between a discrete and a continuous random variable
• Calculate the probability distribution of a discrete random variable for simple
random phenomena
• Calculate and interpret the expected value or mean and standard deviation of a
discrete random variable from its probability model
• Recognize when a binomial model is appropriate and identify n and p
• Find binomial probabilities from a table
• Calculate the mean and standard deviation of a binomial distribution from
formulae
• Use the Normal model to approximate the binomial model where appropriate

STA2300 Data Analysis Tutorial (Module 5) S3, 2009