Macquarie University

STAT171 D1, 2013

Assignment Two
th

Due 1 pm, Monday 25 March, via the STAT171 Assignment Box located in the Science Student Services
Centre (E7A 102).
The Assignment will only be accepted if it has a properly completed science cover sheet (with bar-code)
as the first page.

If you wish to submit early and have no access to building E7A, please use the after-hours assignment
box located at the south entrance to the building.
This assignment has been taken from the 2012 mid-session test. The test instructions are included here, but do
not refer to the Assignment. Some test questions have been removed:
Topic 4 material will not be in the test this year, so has been omitted;
Topic 3 (discrete random variables) questions have been placed at the end of the assignment for your
reference, but are not part of the assignment.
Question 2 has been added specifically for the assignment.
For all questions, print out the question sheet and write your answers in the sections left blank for answers.
Marks will be allocated for presentation and general clarity of work as well as for correct answers. All
probabilities must be presented exactly as a fraction or to 4 significant figures as a decimal.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------STAT171 Statistical Data Analysis - D1, 2012

Mid Semester Test
Monday 7th May, 2012 (Week 9)
Family Name: _____________________________
Given Name: _____________________________
Signature: _____________________________
ID No. _____________________________
Tutorial
(circle)

(5) E5A 230 Mon 1 pm

(5) E5A 180 Mon 3 pm

(8) W5A 103 Wed 11 am

(9) E5A 110 Wed 1 pm

(3) E5A 180 Wed 3 pm

(2) W5A 101 Fri 2 pm

(1) E5A 230 Fri 3 pm

Instructions:
(1) Time allowed is 45 minutes.
(2) Fill in your name, signature, ID number and tutorial group on this question paper.
(3) There are eight (8) questions. All questions should be attempted.
(4) The total mark is 100. Questions are not of equal marks the value is indicated with the question
number.
(5) Write your answers to all questions legibly in the spaces provided on the question sheets. If
additional working space is needed, please use the back of the pages.
(6) In most cases, problems in each question are not related to each other. Thus even if you cannot
do some of them you should still attempt to answer the remaining problems.
(7) Students are allowed to bring into the examination room ONE A4 size sheet of notes written on
one or both sides (in the students own handwriting or typed). Electronic calculators are allowed.
(8) Handed out separately are yellow statistical tables (containing all tables needed in the unit
STAT171). Students are to keep these tables for reference later in the semester.
(9) This question paper must be returned at the end of the examination.

Question 1 [ 14 marks in the test
20 marks in the assignment]

Answer each of the following as concisely as possible. In general, answers should take no more than
about 3 lines to answer. Briefly show your working (or verbally explain) how you obtained your
answer.
Six qualified athletes (Anderson, Brady, Clifford, Dilbert, Elfin and Frankie), compete in a beach
sprint, and the order of finish is recorded. It is not possible for two athletes to finish at exactly the
same time.
(a)

How many simple events are in the sample space?

(b)

Using sensible notation, list two of these. Use formal set/event notation.

(c)

If the athletes are equally capable, what is the probability that the first-place getter is Dilbert and
second place-getter is Elfin?

(d)

If we know that Frankie is generally (but not always) the fastest runner in the group, will your
answers to the previous parts of this question change? If not, briefly explain why. If yes, briefly
explain why and state the nature (direction) of the change.
(i)

Number of events:

(ii)

Possible simple events:

(iii) Required probability:

Question 2 [test question was 12 marks this question inserted
24 marks in the assignment]
The test question involved the Normal distribution not yet covered
removed.
** This question has been added for the assignment.
You must show your working or (briefly) explain your reasoning to get full marks.
An elevator containing four people can stop at any of seven floors.
(a)

What is the probability that the people all get off at the same floor?

(b)

What is the probability that the people get off at four different floors?

(c)

(i)

What are you assuming in order to answer parts (a) and (b) of this question?

(ii)

Give an example of when this assumption would not hold.

(iii) State whether the probabilities obtained in parts (a) and (b) would be higher or lower in this
case. Briefly give reasons for your answers.
(a)

one floor:

(b)

four floors:

Question 5 [12 marks in the test
22 marks in the assignment]

Over a long period of time, a lecturer has noted that on a cold autumn day, 60% of students wear
covered shoes (as opposed to uncovered shoes such as thongs). She has also noted that 20% of the
students wear a hat, and 16% of the students wear both covered shoes and a hat.
(a)

Formally define sensible event notation, and summarise the information in the question.

(b)

List the elements in the sample space using formal notation.

(c)

What is the probability that a student has neither covered shoes nor a hat on a cold autumn day?

(d)

Is wearing a hat statistically independent of wearing covered shoes? Briefly explain why or why
not.

Question 7 [11 marks in the test
24 marks in the assignment]

Of the people competing at a canoeing carnival, 30% are novice (new) canoeists, 50% are recreational
canoeists, and 20% are long-term canoeists. On one particular course of the river, it is likely that a
canoeist will capsize (overturn) their canoe, however, the likelihood depends on the skill of the
canoeist. It is known that 9% of novices, 4% of recreational and 1% of long-term canoeists capsize.
If we know that a canoe has capsized on this part of the river, what is the probability that the person
involved was a novice?
Show all your working.

These questions were removed from the assignment as the material has not yet been covered.

Question 3 [14 marks in the test]

The lightest one-eighth (12.5%) of fruit cakes from a certain manufacturer are given away to a charity,
the remainder are sold for $6.40 each.
(a) Write down the probability distribution for the $ value of a randomly chosen cake.
(b) What is the mean and standard deviation of the $ value of a randomly selected cake?
(c) Of 12 randomly selected cakes, what is the probability that more than 1 are given away?
(d) (e) Not yet covered.
(f) Added. The fruit cakes contain cherries which are supposed to be pitted. It is estimated that onethird of all cakes contain at least one cherry seed.
(i) What is the probability that more than three cakes are checked until one is found with a
cherry seed?
(ii) What is the expected value and standard deviation of the number of cakes needing to be
checked until exactly 12 cakes are found with cherry seeds?

Question 4 [12 marks in the test]

A flower shop has 12 red roses and 8 yellow roses in stock ready to make into bunches. A customer
orders a bunch of 6 mixed roses (mixed implies that the colour has not been specified).
(a) What is the probability that there will be 4 red and 2 yellow roses in the bunch?
(b) What is the probability that a bunch consists of one coloured flower only?
(c) What is the mean and standard deviation of the number of red roses in the bunch?
(d) What assumption are you making in your answers above? Be brief but explicit.

Question 6 [14 marks in the test]

The average occurrence of a particular dust particle on a filter paper plate is 1.57 per square mm.
(a) What probability model is appropriate for the count of the number of dust particles? State
parameter value(s) and any necessary assumption(s).
(b) What is the probability of exactly 3 dust particles on a given one square mm of filter paper?
(c) What is the probability of exactly 3 dust particles on one square mm portion of the filter paper,
and exactly 4 dust particles on a separate square mm portion of the filter paper?
(d) Briefly explain why the two square mm portions of filter paper must be separate in your
evaluation of the probability in part (c).
(e) What is the probability of exactly 7 dust particles on a total of two square mm of the filter paper?
(f) Which of (c) and (e) did you expect to be smaller? Briefly
x
P(X=x)
P(X<=x)
explain why.

Question 8 [ 11 marks in the test]

The table to the right contains probabilities and cumulative
probabilities for a random variable with a Poisson(6.8) distribution.
(a) What is the value of the median?
(b) What are the values of the lower and upper quartiles and
hence the inter-quartile range?
(c) What proportion of values from a random sample from a
Poisson(6.8) distribution would you expect to be classed as
low outliers in a boxplot?
(d) What proportion of values from a random sample from a
Poisson(6.8) distribution would you expect to be classed as
high outliers in a boxplot?

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

0.001114
0.007574
0.025750
0.058368
0.099225
0.134946
0.152939
0.148569
0.126284
0.095415
0.064882
0.040109
0.022728
0.011889
0.005774
0.002618
0.001113
0.000445

0.001114
0.008687
0.034438
0.092806
0.192031
0.326977
0.479916
0.628486
0.754770
0.850184
0.915066
0.955175
0.977903
0.989792
0.995566
0.998184
0.999297
0.999742