1. You toss a fair coin 3 times.

Given that you have observed at least one

head, what is the probability that you have at least two heads?
Ans:4/7

2. At a certain university, 4% of men are over 6 feet tall and 1% of

women are over 6 feet tall. The total student population is divided in
the ratio 3:2 in favour of women. If a student is selected at random
from among all those over six feet tall, what is the probability that the
student is a woman? Ans: 3/11
3. A factory production line is manufacturing bolts using three machines,
A, B and C. Of the total output, machine A is responsible for 25%,
machine B for 35% and machine C for the rest. It is known from
previous experience with the machines that 5% of the output from
machine A is defective, 4% from machine B and 2% from machine C.
A bolt is chosen at random from the production line and found to be
defective. What is the probability that it came from
(a) machine A (b) machine B (c) machine C?
Ans: 0.362, 0.406, 0.232

4. An engineering company advertises a job in three papers, A,B and C.

It is known that these papers attract undergraduate engineering
readerships in the proportions 2:3:1. The probabilities that an
engineering undergraduate sees and replies to the job advertisement
in these papers are 0.002, 0.001 and 0.005 respectively. Assume that
the undergraduate sees only one job advertisement.
(a) If the engineering company receives only one reply to it
advertisements calculate the probability that the applicant has seen
the job advertised in paper
i. in A
ii. in B
iii. in C
(b) If the company receives two replies, what is the probability that
both applicants saw the job advertised in paper A?
Ans: 1/3, ¼,5/12, 1/9

5. Obtain the sample space of an experiment that consists of a ‘fair’ coin

being tossed four times. Consider the following events:
A is the event ‘all four results are the same.’
B is the event ‘exactly one Head occurs.’
C is the event ‘at least two Heads occur.’
Show that P(A) + P(B) + P(C) =17/16 and explain why P(A) + P(B)
+ P(C) > 1. Ans: 2/16, 4/16, 11/16
 6. From a batch of 100 items of which 20 are defective, exactly two items
are chosen, one at a time, without replacement. Calculate the
probabilities that:
(a) the first item chosen is defective;
(b) both items chosen are defective;
(c) the second item chosen is defective
Ans: 1/5, 19/495, 1/5

7. It is a fact that if A and B are independent events then it is also true

that AC and BC are independent events. If A and B are independent
events such that the probability that they both occur simultaneously is
1/8 and the probability that neither of them will occur is 3/8, find P(A)
and P(B).
Ans: ½, 1/4

8. You enter a chess tournament where your probability of winning a game

is 0.3 against half of the players (say, type I); 0.4 against a quarter of the
players (say, type II) and 0.5 against the remaining quarter of the players
(say, type III). You play a game against a randomly chosen opponent. What
is the probability of winning? Ans: 0.375

8. We roll a four sided coin. If the result is 1 or 2, we roll once more;

otherwise we stop. What is the probability that the sum total is at least
4?
Ans: 9/16

10. Consider a well shuffled card deck. What is the probability the second
card in the deck is an ace? Ans: 4/52

11. A soccer team wins 60% of its games when it scores the first goal, and
10% of its games when the opposing team scores first. If the team scores
the first goal about 30% of the time, what fraction of the games does it win?
Ans: 1/4

12. A box contains three coins: two regular coins and one fake two-headed
coin (P(H)=1P(H)=1),

a. You pick a coin at random and toss it. What is the probability that it
lands heads up?
b. You pick a coin at random and toss it, and get heads. What is the
probability that it is the two-headed coin? Ans: 2/3, 1/2

13. I toss a coin repeatedly. The coin is unfair and P(H)=p. The game ends
the first time that two consecutive heads (HH) or two consecutive tails (TT)
are observed. I win if HH is observed and lose if TT is observed. For example
if the outcome is HTHTT, I lose. On the other hand, if the outcome
is THTHTHH, I win. Find the probability that I win.

Ans:p2(2-p)/1-p-p2

14. A family has two children. Given that one of the children is a boy, what
is the probability that both children are boys? Ans: 1/3
15. Balls numbered 1 through 20 are placed in a bag. Three balls are drawn
out of the bag without replacement. What is the probability that all the balls
have odd numbers on them? Ans:2/19

16. Suppose, a box contains 40 envelopes of which 25 are ordinary (i.e. not
meant for airmail) and 16 are unstamped while the number of unstamped
ordinary envelops is 10. What is the probability that an envelope chosen
from the box at random is a stamped airmail envelope? Ans: 9/40

17. In a newly released martial arts film, the actress playing the lead role
has a stunt double who handles all of the physically dangerous action
scenes. According to the script, the actress appears in 40% of the film’s
scenes, her double appears in 30%, and the two of them are together 5% of
the time. What is the probability that in a given scene, (a) only the stunt
double appears and (b) neither the lead actress nor the double appears?
Ans: 0.25, 0.35

18. A card is drawn from a poker deck. What is the probability that the card
is a club, given that the card is a king? Ans: 1/4

19.
E1
A B

E2 E3
C
The highways connecting two resort areas at A and B are shown in Figure
above. There is a direct route through the mountains and a more circuitous
route going through a third resort area at C in the foothills. Travel between
A and B during the winter months is not always possible, the roads
sometimes being closed due to snow and ice. Suppose we let E1, E2, and E3
denote the events that highways AB, AC, and BC are passable, respectively,
and we know from past years that on a typical winter day, P(E1)= 2/5,
P(E2)= 3/4, P(E3)= 2/3 and P(E3|E2)= 4/5, P(E1|E2 ∩ E3)= ½. What is the
probability that a traveler will be able to get from A to B? Ans: 0.7

20. An urn contains five white chips, four black chips, and three red chips.
Four chips are drawn sequentially and without replacement. What is the
probability of obtaining the sequence (white, red, white, black)? Ans: 0.02

21. A and B are summer interns working as proofreaders for a local

newspaper. Based on aptitude tests, A has a 50% chance of spotting a
hyphenation error, while B picks up on that same kind of mistake 80% of the
time. Suppose the copy they are proofing contains a hyphenation error.
What is the probability it goes undetected? Ans: 0.10

22. In a large university, the freshman profile for one year’s fall admission
says that 40% of the students were in the top 10% of their high school
class, and that 65% are white, of whom 25% were in the top 10% of their
high school class. What is the probability that a freshman student selected
randomly from this class either was in the top 10% of his or her high school
class or is white? Ans: 0.80

23. We toss two balanced dice, and let A be the event that the sum of the
face values of two dice is 8, and B be the event that the face value of the
first one is 3. Calculate P(A|B). Ans: 1/6

24. Suppose a statistics class contains 70% male and 30% female students.
It is known that in a test, 5% of males and 10% of females got an “A”
grade. If one student from this class is randomly selected and observed to
have an “A” grade, what is the probability that this is a male student? Ans:
0.538

25. Suppose that occupations are grouped into upper (U), middle (M), and
lower (L) levels. U1 will denote the event that a father’s occupation is upper-
level; U2 willdenote the event that a son’s occupation is upper-level, etc.
(The subscripts index generations.) Glass and Hall (1954) compiled the
following statistics on occupational mobility in England and Wales:

U2 M2 L2
U1 .45 .48 .07
M1 .05 .70 .25
L1 .01 .50 .49

Such a table, which is called a matrix of transition probabilities, is to be read

in the following way: If a father is in U, the probability that his son is in U is
.45, the probability that his son is inM is .48, etc. The table thus gives
conditional probabilities: for example, P(U2 |U1) = .45. Examination of the
table reveals that there is more upward mobility from L into M than from M
into U. Suppose that of the father’s generation, 10% are in U, 40% in M, and
50% in L.
(a) What is the probability that a son in the next generation is in U?

(b) If a son has occupational status U2, what is the probability that
his father had occupational status U1?
Ans: 0.07, 0.045

26. Suppose that a system consists of components connected in a series, so

the system fails if any one component fails. If there are n mutually
independent components and each fails with probability p, what is the
probability that the system will fail? Ans: 1-(1-p)n

27. During a power blackout, one hundred persons are arrested on suspicion
of looting. Each is given a polygraph test. From past experience it is known
that the polygraph is 90% reliable when administered to a guilty suspect and
98% reliable when given to someone who is innocent. Suppose that of the
one hundred persons taken into custody, only twelve were actually involved
in any wrongdoing. What is the probability that a given suspect is innocent
given that the polygraph says he is guilty? Ans: 0.14

28. Suppose the string of Christmas tree lights you just bought has twenty-
four bulbs wired in series. If each bulb has a 99.9% chance of “working” the
first time current is applied, what is the probability that the string itself will
not work? Ans: 0.02

29. During an epidemic in a town, 40% of its inhabitants became sick. Of

any 100 sick persons, 10 will need to be admitted to an emergency ward.
What is the probability that a randomly chosen person from this town will be
admitted to an emergency ward? Ans: 0.04

30. A hung jury is one that is unable to reach a unanimous decision.

Suppose that a pool of twenty-five potential jurors is assigned to a murder
case where the evidence is so overwhelming against the defendant that
twenty-three of the twenty-five would return a guilty verdict. The other two
potential jurors would vote to acquit regardless of the facts. What is the
probability that a twelve-member panel chosen at random from the pool of
twenty-five will be unable to reach a unanimous decision? Ans: 0.74