Exercises Unit 6.

Discrete probability distributions

Basic Exercises

Example Activity Video Ministerio del Tiempo

We have 10 wooden boxes, 5 feathers are put in 5 boxes and all of them are closed. Table of
probabilities of getting right k boxes with feather by chance:

Number of boxes Probability

with feather P(x)
Value of x
0 0.004
1 0.099
2 0.397
3 0.397
4 0.099
5 0.004

a) Which is the probability of getting right 2 or 3 boxes with feather?

b) Which is the probability of getting right 0 or 5 boxes with feather?
c) Find the expected value and standard deviation of the number of boxes with feather in
any choice by chance.

Exercise 7.7 (Page 267)

An economist wants to estimate the total cost of a project to make an appropriate offer. Her
work is valued in a fixed part of 12000 euros and other variable part of 300 euros per each
working day. The project can be done between 7 and 11 days. We denote variable x as the
number of days which will take her to finish the project. The following table shows the
probability of finishing the project in each case:
Number of days Probability
Value of x P(x)
7 0.10
8 0.20
9 ?
10 0.30
11 0.10

a) Which is the probability of finishing the project in 9 days? Justify your answer.
b) Find the expected value and variance of the number of days to finish the project.
c) Find the expected value and variance of the cost.

Exercise 7.8 (Page 267)

A firm produces a kind of sweet that is sold in boxes which contain between 28 and 32 units.
The following table shows the probability of having between 28 and 32 sweets:
Number of sweets Probability
Value of x P(x)
28 0.08
29 0.40
30 0.40

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 31 0.10
32 0.02

a) Which probability is higher, having more than 30 sweets or less than 30 sweets in a
box? Justify your answer.
b) Find the expected value and variance of the number of sweets in any given box.
c) The cost of producing a box of sweets has a fixed part of 0.10 euros and a variable part
of 0.05 euros per each sweet. Find the expected value and variance of the cost.

4.35 (Page 165 in 8th edition) (4.35, page 179 in 7th edition)
A production manager knows that 5% of components produced by a particular manufacturing
process have some defect. Six of these components, whose characteristics can be assumed to
be independent of each other, are examined.
a) What is the probability that none of these components has a defect?
b) What is the probability that one of these components has a defect?
c) What is the probability that at least two of these components have a defect?

4.37 (Page 165 in 8th edition) (4.37, page 179 in 7th edition)
A public interest group hires students to solicit donations by telephone. After a brief training
period students make calls to potential donors and are paid on a commission basis. Experience
indicates that early on, these students tend to have only modest success and that 70% of them
give up their jobs in their first two weeks of employment. The group hires 6 students, which
can be viewed as a random sample.
a) What is the probability that at least 2 of the 6 will give up in the first two weeks?
b) What is the probability that at least 2 of the 6 will not give up in the first two weeks?

4.39 (Page 165 in 8th edition) (4.39, page 179 in 7th edition)
A company installs new central-heating furnaces and has found that for 15% of all installations,
a return visit is needed to make some modifications. Six installations were made in a particular
week. Assume independence of outcomes for these installations.
a) What is the probability that a return visit will be needed in all these cases?
b) What is the probability that a return visit will be needed in none of these cases?
c) What is the probability that a return visit will be needed in more than 1 of these cases?

4.54 (Page 173 in 8th edition) (4.64, page 190 in 7th edition)
Customers arrive at a busy checkout counter at an average rate of 3 per minute. If the
distribution of arrivals is Poisson, find the probability that in any given minute there will be 2
or fewer arrivals.

4.55 (Page 173 in 8th edition) (4.65, page 190 in 7th edition)
The number of accidents in a production facility has a Poisson distribution with a mean of 2.6
per month.
a) For a given month what is the probability there will be fewer than 2 accidents?
b) For a given month what is the probability there will be more than 3 accidents?

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4.56 (Page 173 in 8th edition) (4.66, page 190 in 7th edition)
A customer service center in India receives, on average, 4.2 telephone calls per minute. If the
distribution of calls is Poisson, what is the probability of receiving at least 3 calls during a
particular minute?

Exercise 5.2.2 (Page 188)

There are two airports in a specific region. The number of landings in an hour in each airport
follows a Poisson distribution, the first airport with mean equal to 1 and the second airport
with mean equal to 0.5. Assume the distribution is the same in every hour the airports are
open, and also that the number of landings in one airport is independent of the number of
landings in the other airport.

a) Compute the probability that during 10 hours the number of landings in the first
airport ranges between 10 and 11.
b) There is a project to build an airport that will substitute both existing ones, therefore,
it will have the air traffic of both existing airports. Compute the probability that the
number of landings each hour in the new airport is greater than 2.

1. Let the number of work accidents follow a Poisson probability distribution, with mean 5
accidents per day.
a) Find the probability of less than 3 accidents per day.
b) A firm considers that a day is labeled “acceptable” if the number of accidents is less
than or equal to 2. Find the probability of at least four days being acceptable in a five
day period.

2. A firm has 10 photocopying machines. Each of them is inoperative 20% of the days:
a) Find the probability of more than one machine being inoperative in a given day.
b) The firm loses 30 €/day per inoperative machine. Find the expected daily losses
(mean).

3. A researcher working for a market research firm knows that the probability of a survey
being answered is 0.4. The cost per survey is 3 euro if the respondent does not answer and 12
€ if he/she does. Find the expected cost of 500 surveys.

4. The number of citizens calling the emergency phone number 112 follows a Poisson
distribution with variance equal to 5 phone calls per day. Find:
a) The probability of receiving 15 calls.
b) The probability of not receiving a call at least for two days in a year (360 days).

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Exercise 4.3.1 (Page 146)
From the total number of claims presented in national consumers’ associations in 2000, 19%
were from the housing sector. Assume that a particular consumers’ office follows this global
behavior.
How many claims should this office receive in a year, for having at least one claim referred to
the housing sector, with a probability of 99%?

Exercise 4.3.4 (Page 149)

The number of accidents with killed people in roads in certain region during a working week is
a random variable. We can admit this variable follows a Poisson distribution with mean equal
to 2.
a) Compute the probability that in any working week the expected number of accidents
occurs.
b) The authority in traffic (DGT) decides to declare “white working weeks” those in which
no accidents with killed people occur. Considering a period of 10 weeks, in which there
is not a single public holyday, compute the probability that there are, at least, 2 white
working weeks.

Exam Problems of other academic years

Exam 8 July 2015

Problem 5 (2.5 points) An online retailer has two customer support twitter
accounts: one for purchase orders (account A) and another for general
questions (account B). The number of messages attended per 30 minutes can
be approximated in each account to a Poisson distribution with means 3
(account A) and 4 (account B).
a) Find the probability that account A attends 2 or 3 messages in 30
minutes.
b) Take a period of 4 hours. Find the probability that account B handles 30
messages.
c) A 30 minutes period is considered to be anomalous if no message is
handled. Consider account A during 4 hours. What is the probability that
none of the 30 minutes periods in these 4 hours are anomalous?

Exam 4 June 2018

Problem 4 (1 point) A construction firm is considering applying to obtain 3
public contracts. The firm estimates the probability distribution of the number of
public contracts obtained (variable X) based on its experience:

x 0 1 2 3
P(x) ? 0.35 0.10 0.05

a) Find the probability that the firm does not obtain any contract.
b) The firm estimates that expenses in preparing the application and the
implementation of a contract are 90000 euros. Each contract obtained

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 can imply a revenue of 225000 euros. Compute the expected value
(mean) and standard deviation of the benefit for the firm.

Exam 4 June 2018

Problem 5 (2 points) The number of deliveries that the neighbours of a building
receive in a working day follows a Poisson distribution with mean equal to 2
deliveries in a working day.

a) Find the probability of receiving at most 3 deliveries in that building in any

given working day.
b) Consider 3 working days. Find the probability of receiving exactly 7
deliveries in total in these 3 days.
c) Consider a sample of 5 working days randomly chosen. Find the
probability that the number of days with 1 delivery received per day is
equal to 2 (of the 5 days considered).

References:
• Example of Activity video Ministerio del Tiempo is from the Activity of Unit 5 made in
theory class, based on Chapter 14 (Season 2) of the TV series El Ministerio del Tiempo.
• Exercises 7.7 and 7.8 are taken from Esteban J. et al (2005), Estadística descriptiva y
nociones de probabilidad, Thomson.
• Exercises 4.35, 4.37, 4.39, 4.54, 4.55 and 4.56 are taken from Newbold, Carlson and
Thorne (2010), Statistics for Business and Economics, Prentice Hall.
• Exercise 5.2.2, 4.3.1 and 4.3.4 are taken from Murgui et al (2002) Ejercicios de
estadística. Economía y ciencias sociales. Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia.
• Exercises 1, 2, 3 and 4 are taken from Juan Montoro notes.