KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
STAT 253: Probability and Statistics for Engineers
Tutorial 1
NOTE: Submit questions 2, 5, 10, 11, 17 and 20 for Assignment 1
1. A sample of two items is selected without replacement from a batch. Describe the (ordered)
sample space for each of the following batches:
a) The batch contains the items {a, b, c, d}.
b) The batch contains the items {a, b, c, d, e, f, g}.
c) The batch contains 4 defective items and 20 good items.
d) The batch contains 1 defective item and 20 good items
2. Suppose that a batch contains six parts with part numbers {a, b, c, d, e, f}. If two parts are
selected without replacement. Find the probability that the first part selected is a
3. A committee of size 5 is to be selected from a group of 6 men and 9 women. If the selection
is made randomly, what is the probability that the committee consists of 3 men and 2
women?
4. Suppose a day’s production of 850 manufactured parts contains 50 parts that do not meet
customer requirements. Suppose two parts are selected from the batch, but the first part is
replaced before the second part is selected. What is the probability that the second part is
defective (denoted as B) given that the first part is defective (denoted as A)?
5. Mr. Jones has 10 books that he is going to put on his bookshelf. Of these, 4 are mathematics
books, 3 are chemistry books, 2 are history books, and 1 is a language book. Jones wants
to arrange his books so that all the books dealing with the same subject are together on the
shelf. How many different arrangements are possible
6. A maintenance firm has gathered the following information regarding the failure
mechanisms for air conditioning system:
Evidence of gas leaks
Yes No
Evidence of Yes 55 17
electrical failure No 32 3
The units without evidence of gas leaks or electrical failure showed other types of failure.
If this is a representative sample of AC failure, find the probability
a. That failure involves a gas leak
b. That there is evidence of electrical failure given that there was a gas leak
c. That there is evidence of a gas leak given that there is evidence of electrical failure
7. Suppose your vehicle is licensed in a state that issues license plates that consist of three
digits followed by three letters. If a license number is selected randomly, what is the
probability yours is the one selected?
8. Customers are used to evaluate preliminary product designs. In the past, 95% of highly
successful products received good reviews, 60% of moderately successful products
received good reviews, and 10% of poor products received good reviews. In addition, 40%
of products have been highly successful, 35% have been moderately successful, and 25%
have been poor products.
a. What is the probability that a product attains a good review?
b. If a new design attains a good review, what is the probability that it will be a highly
successful product?
c. If a product does not attains a good review, what is the probability that it will be a
highly successful product?
9. If 𝑃(𝐴) = 0.3, 𝑃(𝐵) = 0.2 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) = 0.1, determine the following probabilities:
i. 𝑃(𝐴′ )
ii. 𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵)
iii. 𝑃(𝐴′ ∩ 𝐵)
iv. 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵 ′ )
v. 𝑃[(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵)′ ]
vi. 𝑃(𝐴′ ∪ 𝐵)
10. Ms. Peggy figures that there is a 30 percent chance that her company will set up a branch
office in Accra. If it does, she is 60 percent certain that she will be made manager of this
new operation. What is the probability that Peggy will be Accra branch office manager?
11. A plane is missing and it is presumed that it was equally likely to have gone down in any
of three possible regions. Let 1 − 𝛼𝑖 denote the probability the plane will be found upon a
search of the ith region when the plane is, in fact, in that region, i = 1, 2, 3. What is the
conditional probability that the plane is in the ith region, given that a search of region 1 is
unsuccessful, i = 1, 2, 3?
12. Consider the data on wafer contamination and location in the sputtering tools shown below
Number of Center Edge Totals
Contamination
Particles
0 0.30 0.10 0.40
1 0.15 0.05 0.20
2 0.10 0.05 0.15
3 0.06 0.04 0.10
4 0.04 0.01 0.05
5 or more 0.07 0.03 0.10
Totals 0.72 0.28 1.00
Assume that one wafer is selected at random from this set. Let A denote the event that a
wafer contains four or more particles, and let B denote the event that a wafer contains is
from the center of the sputtering tool. Determine:
i. 𝑃(𝐴)
ii. 𝑃(𝐴|𝐵)
iii. 𝑃(𝐵)
iv. 𝑃(𝐵|𝐴)
v. 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵)
vi. 𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵)
13. If n people are present in a room, what is the probability that no two of them celebrate their
birthday on the same day of the year? How large need n be so that this probability is less
1
than 2 ?
14. A basketball team consists of 6 black and 6 white players. The players are to be paired in
groups of two for the purpose of determining roommates. If the pairings are done at
random, what is the probability that none of the black players will have a white roommate?
15. In answering a question on a multiple-choice test, a student either knows the answer or she
guesses. Let p be the probability that she knows the answer and 1 − 𝑝 the probability that
she guesses. Assume that a student who guesses at the answer will be correct with
1
probability , where m is the number of multiple-choice alternatives. What is the
𝑚
conditional probability that a student knew the answer to a question given that she
answered it correctly?
16. A target on a test firing range consists of a bull’s-eye with two concentric rings around it.
A projectile is fired at the target. The probability that it hits the bull’s-eye is 0.10, the
probability that it hits the inner ring is 0.25, and the probability that it hits the outer ring is
0.45. What is the probability that the projectile hits the target? What is the probability that
it misses the target?
17. In a process that manufactures aluminum cans, the probability that a can has a flaw on its
side is 0.02, the probability that a can has a flaw on the top is 0.03, and the probability that
a can has a flaw on both the side and the top is 0.01. What is the probability that a randomly
chosen can has a flaw? What is the probability that it has no flaw? What is the probability
that a can has a flaw on the top but not on the side?
18. A box of bolts contains 8 thick bolts, 5 medium bolts, and 3 thin bolts. A box of nuts
contains 6 that fit the thick bolts, 4 that fit the medium bolts, and 2 that fit the thin bolts.
One bolt and one nut are chosen at random. What is the probability that the nut fits the
bolt?
19. At a certain stage of a criminal investigation, the inspector in charge is 60 percent
convinced of the guilt of a certain suspect. Suppose now that a new piece of evidence that
shows that the criminal has a certain characteristic (such as left-handedness, baldness,
brown hair, etc.) is uncovered. If 20 percent of the population possesses this characteristic,
how certain of the guilt of the suspect should the inspector now be if it turns out that the
suspect is among this group? Let us now suppose that the new evidence is subject to
different possible interpretations, and in fact only shows that it is 90 percent likely that the
criminal possesses this certain characteristic. In this case, how likely would it be that the
suspect is guilty (assuming, as before, that he has this characteristic)?
20. A set of k coupons, each of which is independently a type j coupon with probability 𝑝𝑗 ,
∑𝑛𝑗=1 𝑝𝑗 = 1, is collected. Find the probability that the set contains a type j coupon given
that it contains a type i , 𝑖 ≠ 𝑗.