Alexandria University Computer Systems Engineering Engineering Probabilities

Sheet #4 Conditional Probability, Bays Formula

1. Three coins are tossed. If both heads and tails appear, determine the probability that exactly one
head appears.

2. A group of 100 girls contains 30 blondes and 70 brunettes. 25 of the blondes are blue-eyed and the
rest are brown-eyed, whereas 55 of brunettes are brown-eyed and the rest are blue-eyed. A girl is chosen at random and it is determined that she is blue-eyed. Find the conditional probability that she is a blonde.

3. Three drawers or urns I, II and III contain, respectively, two gold pieces, a gold and a silver piece, and
two silver pieces. A drawer is chosen at random, and a piece chosen at random from this drawer turned out to be gold. Find the probability that the other piece in the drawer is of gold.

4. Show that : P[(AB)\C]=P(A\C)+P(B\C)-P(AB\C) 5. Consider tow events A, B such that p(A)=1/4, p(B\A)=1/2, p(A\B)=1/4. Which of the following
statement are true: a. A and B are mutually exclusive events. b. P (Ac\Bc)=3/4. c. P (A\B) + p(A\Bc)=1. d. A and B are dependent events.

6. Urns I, II, III, IV contain, respectively, four gold pieces, three gold and one silver piece, two gold and
two silver pieces, one gold and three silver pieces. An urn is chosen at random and an object drawn from this urn turned out to be a gold piece. If the gold piece is returned to this urn, find the probability that a further random draw from this urn will yield a golden piece.

7. A game is played as follows: a pair of dice is cast and the player wins immediately if a seven or
eleven occurs (total points). He loses if a 2, 3 or 12 occurs on the first cast. If his first point is k, k=4, 5 10, he continues to cast, and only his point k and 7 are c onsidered; all other numbers that occur are disregarded. The caster wins if he duplicates his point, k, before a 7 occurs, otherwise he loses. Find the probability that the player wins.

8. A and B are events where: p(A)=1/4, p(A U B)=1/3, p(B)=.

a. Find if A and B are mutually exclusive. b. Find if A and B are independent. c. Find if A is a subset of B.

9. Let three fair coins be tossed. Let A={all heads or all tails}, B={at least two heads} and C={at most
two heads}. Of the pairs (A, B), (A, C) and (B, C) which are independent and which are not?

10. A tells the truth with probability p1 and B tells the truth with probability p 2 independently. A makes a
statement and B says that A lied. Find the probability that A told the truth.

11. A team wins with a probability 0.5, loses with probability 0.3 and ties with probability 0.2. The team
plays twice. a. Determine the sample space S and the probability of the sample points. b. Find the probability that the team wins at least once.

12. Three men A, B and C alternate firing at a target in the order. The probabilities that A, B, C strike
the target are p1 ,p2 ,p3 , respectively, assuming Bernoulli trials*, find the probability that a. A will hit the target first. b. B will hit the target first
* A sequence of independent trials, for which the probability of success on each trial remains a fixed constant p, is called a sequence of Bernoulli trials.

Prof. Dr. Soheir A. Fouad