MATH 3160, SPRING 2013

HOMEWORK #2—SOLUTIONS

JOHANNA FRANKLIN

This assignment will be due on Wednesday, February 6 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. (You should at least write a sentence explaining your answer.)

(1) (based on Chapter 2, #1) Suppose a box contains 3 marbles: 1 red, 1 green, and 1 blue.
(a) Consider an experiment that consists of taking 1 marble from the box and then re-
placing it in the box and drawing a second marble from the box. List all possible
outcomes.
Solution. Since every marble can be drawn first and every marble can be drawn
second, there are 32 = 9 possibilities: RR, RG, RB, GR, GG, GB, BR, BG, and BB
(we let the first letter of the color of the drawn marble represent the draw).
(b) Consider an experiment that consists of taking 1 marble from the box and then drawing
a second marble from the box without replacing the first. List all possible outcomes.
Solution. In this case, the color of the second marble cannot match the color of the
first, so there are 6 possibilities: RG, RB, GR, GB, BR, and BG.
(2) (based on Chapter 2, #8) Suppose that A and B are mutually exclusive events for which
P (A) = .3 and P (B) = .5.
(a) What is the probability that A occurs but B does not?
Solution. Since A and B are mutually exclusive, the only way A can occur is when
B does not. This means that P (A ∩ B c ) = P (A) = .3.
(b) What is the probability that neither A nor B occurs?
Solution. Since A ∩ B = ∅, Axiom 3 tells us that P (A ∪ B) = P (A) + P (B) = .8.
Since we want P (Ac ∩ B c ), we use DeMorgan’s Law to see that this is P ((A ∪ B)c ) =
1 − P (A ∪ B) = .2.
(3) In City, 60% of the households subscribe to newspaper A, 50% to newspaper B, 40% to
newspaper C, 30% to A and B, 20% to B and C, and 10% to A and C, but none subscribe
to all three.
(a) What percentage subscribe to exactly one newspaper?
Solution. We use these percentages to produce the Venn diagram below:

1
2 FRANKLIN

This tells us that 30% of households subscribe to exactly one paper.

(b) What percentage subscribe to at most one newspaper?
Solution. The Venn diagram tells us that 100% - (10% + 20% + 30%) = 40% of
households subscribe to at most one paper.
(4) Chris and Dora are repeatedly playing a game that they each have probability 12 of winning
each time they play. The first person to win 5 games wins the match. What is the probability
that Dora will win if she has won 4 games and Chris has won 3?
Solution. Dora will win if one of two situations happens: she wins the next game (so the
final score is 5-3), or Chris wins the next one but she wins the one after that (so the final
score is 5-4). The probability of the first is 12 and the probability of the second is 12 · 12 = 41 ,
and since these events are mutually exclusive, the probability that at least one happens is
1 1 3
2 + 4 = 4.
(5) (based on Chapter 2, #35) Seven balls are randomly drawn from an urn that contains 12
red balls, 16 blue balls, and 18 green balls.
(a) Find the probability that exactly two red balls are drawn.
Solution. There are 46 of drawing 7 particular balls of the 46, 12



7 ways 2 ways of
drawing two red ones, and 34


5 ways of drawing five nonred balls, so the probability
that exactly two red balls are drawn is
12 34



2

5 .
46
7
(b) Find the probability that no more than one green ball is drawn.
Solution. If no more than one green ball is drawn, this means that either no green
balls are drawn or exactly
one
green ball is drawn. Using the same reasoning as in
18 28 18 28



the first part, there are 0 7 ways to choose zero green balls and 1 6 ways to
choose exactly one, so since these events are mutually exclusive, the probability that
at most one green ball is drawn is
18 28 18 28





0

7 +
46
1

6 .
46
7 7
 MATH 3160, SPRING 2013 HOMEWORK #2—SOLUTIONS 3

(6) (based on Chapter 2, #6 (Theoretical Exercises)) Let E, F , and G be three events. Use
unions, intersections, and complements to find an expression for the event that at most one
of E, F , and G occurs.
Solution. There are four ways in which at most one of these three events can occur:
• none of E, F , and G occur (E c ∩ F c ∩ Gc ),
• E occurs but not F and G (E ∩ F c ∩ Gc ),
• F occurs but not E and G (E c ∩ F ∩ Gc ), and
• G occurs but not E and F (E c ∩ F c ∩ G).
This means that to express the event in which at most one of these occurs, we need to take
the union of these four ways:
(E c ∩ F c ∩ Gc ) ∪ (E ∩ F c ∩ Gc ) ∪ (E c ∩ F ∩ Gc ) ∪ (E c ∩ F c ∩ G).

Suggested problems: Chapter 2 Problems: 2-3, 6, 9-12, 18-20, 28-29, 36-41; Chapter
2 Theoretical Exercises: 1-3, 6-7