BUSN 2750: Descriptive Statistics
Week 3.1 Tutorial
1. Does it make sense?
a) When randomly selecting a day of the week, it is certain that you will select a day
containing the letter y, so P(y) = 1.
b) An insurance company states that the probability that a particular car will be involved in a
car crash this year is 0.6 and the probability that the car will not be involved in a car crash
this year is 0.3.
c) Kelly studies the Wisconsin Pick 3 lottery and finds that for a $1 bet, the expected return is
50¢, so she reasons that this is bad bet and she does not play.
2. Consider the following Venn diagram, where
P(E2) = P(E3) = 1/5, P(E4) = P(E5) = 1/10, P(E6) = 1/20 – mutually exclusive
A B
E4
E2
E1
E3 E5
E6
Find each of the following probabilities:
a. P(A) = 1 – ¼ = 3/4 e. P(Ac) = 1/10 + 1/10 + 1/20 = 5/20 = 1/4
b. P(B) = 0.6 = 12/20 f. P(Bc) = 8/20 = 0.4
c. P(AUB) = 1 – 1/20 = 19/20 g. P(AUAC) = 1
d. P(A∩B) = 1/5 + 1/5 = 2/5 h. P(AC∩B) = 1/10 + 1/10 = 2/10 = 1/5
3. Suppose that 80% of the employees of a company received cash or company stock as a
bonus at the end of the year. If 60% of the employees received a cash bonus and 30% received
stock, what is the probability that a randomly chosen employee received both cash and stock as a
bonus?
4. Winning the lottery
A state lottery’s Pick 3 game asks players to choose a three-digit number, 000 to 999. The state
chooses the winning three-digit number at random, so that each number has probability 1/1000. You
win if the winning number contains the digits in your number, in any order.
a. Your number is 491. What is your probability of winning?
b. Your number is 222. What is your probability of winning? 1/1000 = 0.1%
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BUSN 2750: Descriptive Statistics
5. Ringtones
What are the popular ringtones? The web site [Link] updates its list of top ringtones
frequently. Here are probabilities for the top 10 ringtones listed by the site recently:
Ringtone Probability Ringtone Probability
Empire State of 0.180 Bad Romance 0.081
Mind
Baby By Me 0.136 I Can Transform Ya 0.075
Forever 0.114 Down 0.070
Party in the USA 0.107 I Gotta Feeling 0.068
Fireflies 0.103 Money To Blow 0.066
a. What is the probability that a randomly selected ringtone from this list is either Empire State
of Mind or I Gotta Feeling?
b. What is the probability that a randomly selected ringtone from this list is not Empire State of
Mind and not I Gotta Feeling? 1 – 0.18 – 0.068 = 0.752
c. If two ringtones are selected independently, what is the probability that both are Party in the
USA?
d. What is the complement of the event described in part c?
6. Suppose a filmmaker reviews 5 movie offers each month. This month, the filmmaker has
received 20 new movie offers from which to make the selection. How many different samples of 5
movies can be selected from the 20?
7. Let event A = learning Spanish. Let event B = learning German. Then A∩B = learning
Spanish and German. Suppose P(A) =0.4 and P(B) = 0.2 . P(A∩B) = 0.08 . Are events A and B
independent? Hint: You must show ONE of the following:
P(A|B) = P(A)
P(B|A) = P(B)
P(A∩B) = P(A)P(B)
8. The following table summarizes data on 985 pedestrian deaths that were caused by accidents
(based on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration).
a. If one of the pedestrian deaths is randomly selected, find the probability that the pedestrian
was intoxicated or the driver was intoxicated.
b. If two different pedestrian deaths are randomly selected, find the probability that in both
cases the drivers were intoxicated.
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BUSN 2750: Descriptive Statistics
9. Nino is in a dark room selecting socks from her drawer. She has only six socks in her
drawer, a mixture of black and white. If she chooses two socks, the chances that she picks a white
pair is 2/3. Then what are the chances that she selects a black pair?
10. Imagine someone walks up to you and says "I have two children. One of them is a boy. What
is the probability the other one is a boy?" (Assume for the sake of the question that the probability of
having a boy or a girl are exactly 50/50)