MATH 3160, SPRING 2013

HOMEWORK #3—SOLUTIONS

JOHANNA FRANKLIN

This assignment will be due on Wednesday, February 13 at the beginning of class. Remember
to show your reasoning and name the classmates you worked with. Answers without work shown
will receive almost minimal credit.

(1) Suppose you pick 13 cards from a standard deck of 52. What is the probability that you
will not get a card from every suit?
Solution. Let H be the event “a heart is picked,” let D be the event “a diamond is
picked,” let S be the event “a spade is picked,” and let C be the event “a club is picked.”
We want P ((H ∩ D ∩ S ∩ C)c ): the probability of the event that it is not true that all
suits are picked. We can use DeMorgan’s Laws to see that this is equivalent to calculating
P (H c ∪ Dc ∪ S c ∪ C c ), and we can do this using the inclusion/exclusion identity.
We begin by noticing that all hands are equally likely and that there are 52


13 such hands.
Now we see that there are 39 c


13 ways for H to happen. The same counting technique works
for the other suits, so
39


P (H c ) + P (Dc ) + P (S c ) + P (C c ) = 4 · 13
52 .


13
Now we calculate P (H c ∩ Dc ). There are 26


13 ways for this event to happen, and since this
4


same counting technique works for all 2 pairs of suits, the sum of the probabilities of the
events consisting of avoiding pairs of suits is
  26

4 13
· 52
.
2 13
A similar technique works for calculating the sum of the probabilities of the events consisting
of avoiding triples of suits: we get
  13

4 13
· 52
.
3 13
Finally, we note that P (H c ∩ Dc ∩ S c ∩ C c ) = 0, so by the inclusion/exclusion identity,
39

  26
  13

c c c c 13 4 4
P (H ∪ D ∪ S ∪ C ) = 4 · 52
− · 13
52

+ · 13
52 − 0.


13
2 13
3 13
(2) A friend rolls two standard, fair, 6-sided dice and tells you that there is at least one 6.
What is the probability that the sum is at least 9?

1
2 FRANKLIN

Solution. Let E be the event “there is at least one 6” and F be the event “the sum is at
least 9.” We want to calculate P (F |E). Begin by noting that there are 36 possible rolls of
these two dice and all of them are equally likely. We can see that 11 different rolls of these
11
two dice will result in at least one 6, so P (E) = 36 . There are 7 different rolls that will
result in at least one 6 and a sum of at least 9 ((6,3), (6,4), (6,5), (6,6), (3,6), (4,6), (5,6)),
so P (E ∩ F ) = 367
. This tells us that P (F |E) = P P(E∩F ) 7 36 7
(E) = 36 11 = 11 .

(3) Eva and Frank each draw 13 cards from a standard deck of 52. Given that Eva has exactly
two aces, what is the probability that Frank has exactly one ace?
Solution. Let E be the event “Eva has two aces,” and let F be the event “Frank has

Again, we want P (F |E), so we calculate
exactly one ace.”
52


P (E) and P (E ∩ F ). Eva could
4 48
have any of 13 possible hands. Of these hands, 2 11 will have exactly two aces, so
4 48



2 11
P (E) = 52

.
13
Now the number

39
of ways in which Eva can have a certain hand and Frank can have

a
certain
hand is 52 4 48 2 37



13 13 , and the number of ways in which E and F can both occur is 2 11 1 12 ,
so
4 48 2 37





2 11 1 12
P (E ∩ F ) = 52 39


.
13 13
Therefore,
(42)(48 2 37
11)(1)(12)
2 37



P (E ∩ F ) 52 39
(13)(13) 1 12
P (F |E) = = = 39 .
(42)(48
11)


P (E) 13
(52
13)

(4) Suppose that 60% of UConn students will be exposed to the flu. If you are exposed and
didn’t get the flu shot, then the probability that you will get the flu is 80%, but if you did
get the flu shot, the probability that you will get the flu is only 15%.
(a) What is the probability that a person who got the flu shot will get the flu?
Solution. Suppose Harry has gotten the flu shot. Let E be the event “Harry is exposed
to the flu,” and let F be the event “Harry gets the flu.” We know that P (E) = 60%
and P (F |E) = 15%. This means that P (E ∩ F ) = .6 · .15 = .09, and it is clear that
P (E c ∩ F ) = 0. Since P (F ) = P (E ∩ F ) + P (E c ∩ F ), we see that P (F ) = .09.
(b) What is the probability that a person who did not get the flu shot will get the flu?
Solution. Suppose Imogen has not gotten the flu shot. Let E be the event “Imogen
is exposed to the flu,” and let F be the event “Imogen gets the flu.” We know that
P (E) = 60% and P (F |E) = 80%. This means that P (E ∩ F ) = .6 · .8 = .48, and
it is clear that P (E c ∩ F ) = 0. Since P (F ) = P (E ∩ F ) + P (E c ∩ F ), we see that
P (F ) = .48.
(5) Color blindness is a sex-linked condition, and 5% of men and 0.25% of women are color
blind. The population of the United States is 51% female. What is the probability that a
color-blind American is a man?
 MATH 3160, SPRING 2013 HOMEWORK #3—SOLUTIONS 3

Solution. Let M be the event “an American is a man” and let C be the event “an American
is color blind.” We draw the following tree:

(.05)(.49)
We want P (M |C), and this tree shows us that the answer is (.05)(.49)+(.0025)(.51) ≈ .9505.
4
(6) Gary goes to class on snowy days with probability 10 and on nonsnowy days with probability
7 1
10 . Suppose that 4 of the days in February are snowy. What is the probability that it
snowed on February 4 given that Gary attended class that day (use only the fact that Gary
attended class that day; do not look at the weather report)?
Solution. Let S be the event “February 4 was snowy” and let C be the event “Gary
attended class on February 4.” We draw the following tree:

1 4
4
We want P (S|C), and this tree shows us that the answer is 1 4
4 10
+ 34 10
7 = 25 .
4 10

Suggested problems: Chapter 3 Problems: 1-3, 6-12, 17-18, 21, 23-24; Chapter 3
Theoretical Exercises: 1-2, 5