2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

1.0 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

1. A sample of five firms showed the following percentage changes in earnings per share in the
current year compared with the previous year: 17, 16, 20, 14, 25. Compute the mean, the
variance, the mode and the median.

2. The amounts of time spent by a random sample of 200 CBU students studying in the week before
the final examination are summarized in the table below
Study time (Hours) Number of students
[0 – 10[ 40
[10 – 20[ 60
[20 – 30[ 70
[30 – 40[ 30

Determine the mean, the median, the mode, the variance, the standard deviation, the coefficient of
variation. Interpret correctly these numbers.

3. The table below shows the percentage returns over 10 years of Six corporate bond funds.

Percentages range Frequency

0 – 10 10
10 – 20 16

20 – 30 25
30 – 40 9

40 - 50 3

a) Calculate the mean percentage of the bond funds

b) Calculate the standard deviation from the data in the table above
c) Determine the Mode
d) Find the median.
e) Find the coefficient of variation and interpret the result

4. A sample of CBU first year students has been categorized by school (SBE, SB, SE), type of program
(degree or diploma), gender (male, female). The number of students in each category is summarized
below:
SB SBE SE
Diploma Degree Diploma Degree Diploma Degree
M F M F M F M F M F M F
15 10 60 40 8 2 50 15 25 5 60 10

Determine the sample proportion of students who are (a) in SE, (b) female, (c) pursuing degree
programs.

1
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

PROBABILITY
2. Probability concepts
2.1 Sample space- events-assigning probability to events.
6. The School of Mathematics and natural orders paper supplies from one of three vendors, V1, V2, and V3.
Orders are to be placed on two successive days, one order per day. Thus (V1, V2) might denote that vendor
V1 gets the order on the first day and vendor V2 gets the order on the second day.
a. list the possible outcomes in this experiment of ordering paper on two successive days
b. assume the vendors are selected at random each day and assign a probability to each outcome.
c. Let A denote the event that the same vendor gets both orders and B the event that V2 gets atleast one
order, Find P(A) and P(B).
d. calculate P(A ∪ B) and P(A ∩ B).
7. A corporation has two contracts that are going to one or more of the three firms. For these contracts (one
firm could receive both contracts).
a. list the possible outcomes for the assignment of the contract to the firms.
b. If all outcomes are equally likely, find the probability that both contracts go to the same firm.
c. Under the assumptions of part b, find the probability that one specific firm, say firm one, gets atleast one
contract
8. A production process results in 27 defective items for each 1000 items produced. What is the probability
of a defective item?
9. A sample of students with bursaries in the School of Business are classified according to majors and
gender. The following data apply:
Majors
Gender Accounting Finance Marketing Business Admin
Male 30 40 35 50
Female 15 25 5 10

Determine the probability of the following events:

a. Finance major b) Accounting Major c) Male d) Female in Business admin.

2.3 Basic probability rules

18. A building contractor is submitting bids to two jobs A and B. The probability that he will win job A is
P (A) = 1/4 and that for B is P(B) = 1/3.
a. Assuming that winning job A and winning job B are independent events, what is the probability that the
appraiser will get at least a job?

2
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

b. If he is also submitting a bid for job C with probability of wining it P(C) = 1/4, what is the probability
that he will get at least one job? Again assume statistical independence among A, B, and C.
d. What is the probability that the contractor will not get any job at all?

19. A small bank has 1000 customers having both checking and savings accounts. The customers are
categorised according to their average monthly account balances as follows:
Savings account
Checking accounts Under $1000 $1000 or more
Under $500 300 400
$500 or more 200 100

Let A denote the set of people with savings of $1000 or more and B denote the se of people with checking
accounts of $500 or more. If a person is selected at random, find the following:
a) P(A) b) P(B) c) P(A ∪ B) d) P(A ∩ B). f) P(A/B) e) P(𝐴̅ ∪ 𝐵̅)
20. An investment broker has provided all clients with a list of several possible independent investments,
each having a probability of 0.7 of yielding a substantial profit. A client decides to purchase four of the
investments.
a. What is the probability that all four yield a profit?
b. what is the probability that the client’s first four investments are not profitable?
21. a statistics class has 20 female students, and 25 male students. The lecturer is interested in electing a
sample of 10 students consisting of 4 female students and 6 male students. In how many ways can this be
formed? What is the probability of having a sample of size 10 consisting of 4 female students and 6 male
students.
22. A mathematics class combines 25 student from computer science department, 16 from mathematics
department, 24 from chemical department and 15 from biology department. The lecturer is interested in
selecting at random 20 students for a special project. What is the probability that the selected students are
7 from computer science department, 4 from mathematics, 6 from chemical and 3 from biology?
3. Random variables and their probability distributions.
23. A building contractor is submitting bids to 3 jobs, A, B, and C. The probabilities that she will win each
of the three jobs are P(A) = 0.5, P(B) = 0.8, and P(C) = 0.2, respectively . Assume events A, B, and C are
statistically independent. Let X be the number of jobs the contractor will win.
a. What are the possible values of X?
b. Compute the pmf of X.
c. Determine P(X  2), P (0 < X  2)
d. Compute E(X), V(X), and SD(X).
24. A contractor estimates the probabilities for the number of days required to complete a certain type of
construction project as follows:

3
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

Time
(days) 1 2 3 4 5
Probability
0.05 0.2 0.35 0.30 0.10

a. What is the probability that a randomly chosen project will take less than 3 days to complete?
b. Find the expected time and the variance of time required to complete a project
c. The contractor’s project cost is made up of two parts- a fixed cost of $20,000, plus $ 2,000 for each day
taken to complete the project. Find the mean and the variance of the total project cost
25. The random variable X has the following distribution for x = 1, 2, 3, 4.

X 1 2 3 4

P(X) 0.02 0.35 0.53 0.10

Calculate a. E(X), E(X2), E(5X - 3), 6E(X + 8), E(5X2 + 2) b. V(3X - 3), V(4X), V(3X + 2)

4. Discrete probability distributions.

4.1. Binomial distribution.

33. A project manager has experience that shows 60% of his projects are completed on schedule. If the
performance record prevails, the probability of the number of projects X completed on schedule in the
next 6 jobs can be described by the binomial distribution.

Find P(X >4), P(X ≤ 2), E(X) and V(X).

34. The probability that a residential home in a high cost area requires roofing repairs is 0.25.

a. If 20 homes are randomly selected from this area, what is the probability that between 4 (inclusive) and
6 (inclusive) homes will require roofing repairs.

b. Find the expected number of homes requiring roofing repairs.

35. The probability that there would be a flood in any year is 0.1. In a 10-year period, what is the
probability of (a) no floods, (b) two or fewer floods, (c) From one to three floods?

36. An engineering firm installs new central heating furnaces and has found that for 15% of all installations
a return visit is needed to make some modifications. Six installations were made in a particular week.
Assume independence of outcomes of these installations.

4
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

a. What is the probability that a return visit was needed in all of these cases?

b. What is the probability that a return visit was needed in more than one of these cases?

4.5. Poisson distribution.

37. A construction company constructs an information booth in the centre of the store. Let X denote the
number of customers who arrive at the booth over a five- minute period with a mean of 4 customers over
a five-minute period,

a. What is the probability that, over any five-minute interval, exactly four people arrive at the information
booth?

b. What is the probability that more than one person will arrive?

c. What is the probability that you observe exactly six people over a five-minute period?

38. An average of five books per hour are returned to a library. Assume that the number of returned books
is Poisson distributed.

a. What is the probability that less than four books will be returned in one hour?

b. What is the standard deviation of the number of books returned?

39. A textbook copy editor is reviewing a manuscript for grammatical errors. Let the random variable X
represent the number of grammatical errors made in a particular chapter. Assume that the conditions of
a Poisson distribution are satisfied with an average of ten grammatical errors per chapter.

a. What is the probability that X is less than three?

b. What is the probability that X is greater than one?

c. What is the mean value of X?

40. The number of people entering a bank during any two -minute interval follows the Poisson distribution
with mean  = 2. Find the probability of the following during a two-minute interval

a. no one enters the bank.

b. At least two people enter the bank.

41. The probability that a student failing to graduate after 5 years (for 5 year-degree programs) is 0.004.
For a sample of 250 students, determine the probability that less than 3 students will fail to graduate after
5 years. What is the expected number of students failing to graduate after 5 years?

5
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

42. The probability of a person having n accident in a certain period of time is 0.0003. For a population of
7500 people:

a. Find the probability of at least 3 people having an accident.

b. Determine the most probable number of people having an accident.

5.2. The normal distribution.

54. Let Z be the standard normal distribution random variable. Find

a. P( 0  Z  1.5 ), P( Z  1.82 ), P(Z  1.64 ) , P( Z  -1.54 ), P(Z  6.00 ), P( Z  5.50 ).

b. Find z such that : P ( Z > z ) = 0.2297, P ( Z > z ) = 0.0007364, P ( Z < z ) = 0.9495, P ( Z < z ) = 09776

55. If the annual precipitation X in a city is a normal variable with a mean of 50 mm and a standard
deviation of 10, determine the following:

The probabilities P(X < 30); P(X >60); P( 40 < X ≤ 55)

56. The life time of a disc drive head is normally distributed with a mean of 1000 hours. Determine the
probability for the following lifetime outcomes for one drive unit.

a) between 1000 and 1150 hours b) between 950 and 1000

c) 930 or less d) longer than 1250 hours

57. A building contractor regards the cost of fulfilling a particular contract as a normally distributed
random variable with mean $ 500,000 and standard deviation $ 50,000.

a. What is the probability that the cost of fulfilling the contract will be between $ 460,000 and $ 540,000?

b. The probability is 0.2 that the contract will cost less than how much to fulfil?

58. Of the students entering the school of built environment, 80 % eventually graduate. If we take a
sample of 100 new students, what is the probability that fewer than 75 eventually graduate?

59. A census report that 60 % of the country’s households have incomes below the poverty line. Suppose
that 1000 households are randomly selected. Find the probability that fewer than 200 of these households
are below the poverty line.

60. Suppose that 20 % of the applicants to the architecture program are women. An admission committee
reviews applications in groups of 100. Find the probability that the number of women in the next group

6
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

is:

a. less than or equal to 15; b. greater than to 25; c. exactly 27; d. between 18 and 26, inclusively; e. less
than 10; f. greater than 40.

6 STATISTICAL INFERENCE:

6.1. Inference about the mean and the variance.

61. A structural engineer is testing the strength of a newly designed steel beam required in cantilever
construction. As his null hypothesis, he assumes that the mean strength will be at most as great as the
100,000 psi (pound per square inch) for traditional beams. A test sample of n = 9 new beams has provided
a sample mean= 105,000 psi and a sample standard deviation = 10,000 psi.

a) At the 5% significance level should the engineer accept or reject his null hypothesis?

b) Test the null hypothesis that the population standard deviation is at most 6,300 psi?

c) Construct 95% confidence intervals for the population mean and the population variance.

62. A building contractor claims that the average direct labour hours required to build a house is less that
than 270 hours. To check this assertion, a random sample of the direct labour hours for 100 jobs during
the past year is selected. If the random sample showed an average of 250 hours and a standard deviation
of 80 hours, would it be safe to conclude, at the 5% level of significance that the population mean is less
than 270 hours? Construct a 95% confidence interval for the population mean.

63. A surveying firm has been contracted to landscape a new development. In order not to exceed their
budget, the team can spend no more than 8 days, on the average, per house. After the completion of 15
houses, the average number of days spent per house is found to be 10, with a sample standard deviation
of 3 days. At the 5% level of significance, is there significant reason to believe that the number of days
spent per house will exceed an average of 8 for the contract?

64. A random sample of 21 students found the following summary information, in hours, for time spent
studying in the week before final exams: sample mean = 45 hours, sample variance = 111.

a. Test at the 5% significance level the null hypothesis that the population mean is 40 hours against the
alternative that it is higher.

b. Test at the 5% significance level the null hypothesis that the standard deviation is 10 hours.

c. Find a 95% confidence interval for the population variance.

7
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

65. Fifty real estate and CEM trainees studying a programmed learning unit of property valuation and
construction required 58.23 minutes to complete the unit, with a standard deviation of 8.5 minutes. Use
the 0.05 level of significance to test the claim that  = 54.62 minutes for the population sample.

6.2. Inference about two population means and two population variances.

66. A statistics lecturer has divided his class into two sections. Section 1, which includes architecture, CEM
and URP and, meets form 8:00 to 10:00, while section2, having real estate and students, meets at 10:30,
with 30 minutes separating the two classes. At examination time, he gives identical test to both sections,
but is concerned that the section meting at 10:30 might, on the average, have higher scores based on
possible information received about the test from students in the 8:00 section.

A random sample of 10 students from each section is selected and the following scores are obtained.

Scores for section 1 98 91 43 39 45 56 66 65 67 57

Scores for section 2 100 97 92 86 85 79 78 94 98 85

a. Perform a preliminary test to check if the assumption of equality of variances is valid.

b. Do the data provide sufficient evidence to indicate that the mean score for section 2 is greater
than the mean score for section 1? Use 5% as the level of significance.

c. Find 95% confidence intervals for the difference in the population means.

67. A building consultant is comparing two different techniques of lighting a store’s window display by
measuring the intensity of light at selected locations in areas lighted by the two methods. If a random
sample of 16 measurements of the intensity of light provided by the first technique has a standard
deviation of 4.4 foot-candles and a random sample of 12 measurements of the intensity of light provided
by the second technique has a standard deviation of 2.2 foot-candles, test the claim that the population
variance of the first method is less than or equal the population variance of the second method. Use a 5%
significance level.

68. The Engineering Institute of Zambia wishes to determine how much, if at all, the mean income of
practicing computer scientist exceeds that of Quantity surveyors. Two independent random samples
provided the following data:

Computer scientist : n1 = 76, mean = K 37,246, s.d. = K 8,371

Quantity surveyors: n2 = 58, mean = K 36,412, s.d. = K 8,856

a. Do the data provide sufficient evidence to indicate that 1 is greater than 2?

8
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

b. Construct a 95 % CI estimate for the difference in population means.

69. Two land surveyors A and B measure the same angle using the same theodolite. A measures the angle
six times with a standard deviation of  6.8 s. B measures it 14 times with a standard deviation of  4.9
s. Is there a significant difference in the ability of the two observers?

70. The computer centre manager would like to know if there is a difference in the weekly computer time
(in seconds) used by the students in real estate department and the students in CEM department. Test
the hypothesis that there is no difference in computer usage for the students in the two departments.
Use a 5% significance level and the sample statistics below, in which 40 weeks were randomly selected
for each department;

Real estate department: n1 = 40. Sample mean = 2503. Sum of the squared deviations = 2180.4

CEM department : n2 = 40. Sample mean = 2510. Sum of the squared deviations = 2291.6

6.3. Inference about one population proportion and two population proportions.

71. A new computer network is being designed. The makers claim that it is compatible with more than
99% of equipment already in use.

a. Set up the null and alternative hypotheses needed to get evidence to support this claim.

b. A sample of 300 programs is run, and 298 of these run with no changes necessary. That is, they are
compatible with the new network. Can the null hypothesis be rejected? Explain.

c. Find a 95% confidence interval for .

72. A building consultant claims that more than half of Kitwe residents are in favour of the construction
of a complex shopping centre at the freedom park. A survey is conducted to gain support for this point of
view. Of 4000 surveyed, 2200 favour the construction. Is this sufficient evidence to justify the claim of
the developer? Test using  = 5 %.

73. Employees of a building materials firm, facing a shutdown, were surveyed on a prospective employee
ownership plan. Some employees pledged $ 10,000 to this plan, putting up $ 800 immediately, while
others indicated that they did not intend to pledge. Of a random sample of 175 pledgers, 78 had already
been laid off, while 208 of a random sample of 604 nonpledgers had already been laid off.

9
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

a. Test at the 5% level, against a two-sided alternative, the null hypothesis that the population proportions
already laid off were the same for pledgers as for nonpledgers.

b. Determine a 95% confidence interval of the difference of the two population proportions.

74. A mathematics lecturer believes that students who did A-level mathematics are performing better in
a first year mathematics course than those who did O-level mathematics. To check this claim, a sample of
100 students with A-level background and another sample of 100 with O-level background are selected at
random. The results are summarised in the table below:

Students with A-level Students with O-level

background background

Number of students who 80 44

passed the final exam

Sample size 100 100

At the 5% significance level, can the claim be accepted?

7. Inference about more than two population means: ANOVA.

75. Three tutoring services offer crash courses preparation for the final examinations. To check the
effectiveness of these services, fifteen students were chosen. Five students were randomly assigned to
service A, five were assigned to service B, and the remaining to service C. Their scores on the examination,
expressed as percentages, are given in the table.

Service A- course: 98 95 85 84 88

Service B- course: 65 78 71 62 74

Service C- course: 62 62 64 68 56 60

At α = 5%, can we conclude that the three services are equally effective? (Perform both stage 1 and stage
2 tests).

78. A class in elementary statistics was divided into 3 sections, as uniformly as possible, according to their
mathematical ability demonstrated on a pre-test. The three sections were given different supplementary
material and tutorial exercises but attended the same lectures .All students were given the same
examinations. The following grades were received by those completing the course:

Section 1 : 73.1 56.5 94.5 59.7 77.5 60.6 80.5 76.8 87.5

Section 2 : 85.0 72.2 78.5 64.5 53.7 51.7 66.6

Section 3: 85.2 76.2 67.4 84.9 72.5 82.0 96.9 84.4

10
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

Is there evidence of different learning potential for these teaching methods? Use  = 0.05.

79. Independent random samples of six lecturers, four senior lecturers, and five professors were asked to
estimate the amount of time outside the classroom spent on teaching responsibility in the last week.
Results, in hours, are shown in accompanying table.

Lecturer : 7 12 11 15 9 14

Senior lecturer : 15 12 15 8

Professors : 11 7 6 9 7

Perform both stage 1 and stage 2 and summarise your findings.

Chi- square tests.

1 Ch-square tests for independence.

80. In a study to determine whether there is a relationship between the degrees held by the employees
of a large real estate and surveying firm and the salaries earned by these employees, a random sample of
size n= 500 yielded the results shown in the following table

Salary

Low Average High

Master's degree 36 128 124

Bachelor's degree 30 70 44

High school diploma 15 34 19

Use the 0.05 level of significance to test if there is no relationship between degrees held and the salaries
earned by these employees.

81. At the end of a course, a statistics lecturer makes the following tally based on grade received and class
attendance. Is the grade received in the course independent of the number of days absent? Use  = 0.05.

Grade received

Number of days absent Pass Fail

0 - 3 24 0

4 - 6 18 2

More than 7 3 13

11
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

82. A study is conducted to see if there is an association between age and willingness to use computerized
banking systems. The data shown below are obtained in a survey of 500 randomly selected customers of
a bank that has been offering computerized banking for over a year. Is there evidence of an association
between these two variables? Use  = 0.05.

Use computerized banking.

Age Yes No

Under 40 150 75

40 and over 150 125

2. Chi-square tests for proportions.

83. A study on student performance is conducted. Random samples of students are drawn from 3 schools:
SBE, SMNS, and SB. One of the objectives of the study is to check if the proportions of students who prefer
the current quarter system are the same for the three schools. The data result

School Sample size Number of students who prefer the quarter

system

SMNS n1 = 250 80

SBE n2 = 100 40

SB n3 = 200 50

Do the data provide sufficient evidence to indicate that the population proportions for the three schools
are the same? Use  = 5 %.
84. A building consultant believes that the proportions of jobs won by contractors using three (3) different
bidding methods are the same.

To verify this claim, samples of 100 jobs provided the following results.
Method 1 Method 2 Method 3

85 50 65

Number of jobs won 15 50 35

Number of jobs not won 100 100 100

Do the sample results support the consultant’s claim at 5 %?

85. A quantity surveyor claims that the proportions of clients, contractors and consultants in joint venture

12
2025 TUTORIAL BCH 250 BIOSTATISTICS

in the Zambian construction industry are the same. To investigate this claim, samples of size 100
individuals each, are selected from the three types of respondents, i.e., clients, contractors and
consultants, and the number of individuals in joint venture is recorded.

Types of Respondents Total

Clients Contractors Consultants

Number of individuals in joint venture 60 80 70 210

Number of individuals not in joint 40 20 30 90

venture

Total 100 100 100 300

Do the sample results support the quantity surveyor’s claim at the 5% significance level?

13