BINOMIAL

PROBABILITY
DISTRIBUTION
• A binomial experiment is one that possesses the following properties:

• The experiment consists of n repeated trials;

• Each trial results in an outcome that may be classified as a success or a
failure (hence the name, binomial);
• The probability of a success, denoted by p, remains constant from trial to
trial and repeated trials are independent.

The number of successes X in n trials of a binomial experiment is called a

binomial random variable.
Example:
1.) A die is tossed 3 times? What is the probability of
a. No fives turning up?
b. 1 time?
c. 3 times?
2.)
The Poisson Distribution
- A Discrete probability Distribution that is useful when n is
large and p is small and when the independent variables occur over a
period of time.
Example
• If there are 200 typographical errors randomly
distributed in a 500-page manuscript, find the
probability that a given page contains exactly 3
errors.

• Ans: 0.0072
• A sales firm receives, on average 3 calls per hour on its toll-free
number. For any given hour, find the probability that it will receive the
following.

• a.) at most 3 calls

Ans: 0.6472
• b.) at least 3 calls
Ans: 0.5768
• c.) 5 or more calls
Ans: 0.1847
3). Births in a hospital occur randomly at an average
rate of 1.8 births per hour.

What is the probability of observing 4 births in a

given hour at the hospital?

Answer: P(X = 4) = (e^−1.8) (1.8^4)/ 4! = 0.0723

Examples:
• If 5 cards are dealt from a standard deck of 52 playing cards, what is
the probability that 3 will be hearts?
Answer: 0.0815
Hypergeometric Distribution:
• If a population of size N contains k items labeled “success” and N-k
items labeled “failure,” then the probability distribution of the
hypergeometric random variable X, the number of successes in a
random sample of size n, is
 𝑘 𝑁−𝑘
𝑥 𝑛−𝑥
h(x;N,n,k) = 𝑁 , for x = 0,1,2, … . . n.
𝑛

Where:
N = Number of members in the finite population
K = Number of members of the finite population that can be classified
as success
n= Number of trials or draws

Using the above parameters the probability of X = k successes can be

given by the following probability mass function.
 Example:

There are 40 cards in a deck of cards. Out of these 12 are red

cards and 28 are black cards. We draw 10 cards randomly from
this pile. We do not replace the card drawn. What is the probability
that exactly 8 out of the chosen cards are red?
Given:

N = 40
n = 10
K = 12
x=8
A school has 105 female students and 90 male
students. If a delegation of 10 students is to be sent
to a cultural event, then what is the probability that
7 out of those 10 would be females?

Answer: 0.15433 or 15.433%

Given:

N = 195
n = 10
K = 105
x=7
Out of 100 bulbs produced by a manufacturing
company, 35 are white light bulbs and the rest are
yellow light bulbs. If 10 bulbs are randomly drawn
without replacement, find the probability that 6 out
of these 10 would be white light bulbs.

Answer: 0.06348 or 6.35%

Given:

N = 100
n = 10
K = 35
x=6
Five cards are chosen randomly from a standard
shuffled deck of 52 cards. What is the probability
that at least 3 out of the 5 cards are diamonds?
• Answer: 0.0935
Given:
N = 52
K = 13
n=5
x = 3, 4, 5