SSP

Assignment 1 Winter 2020

Question 1
A student’s score on a 10-point quiz is equally likely to be any integer between 0 and 10.
What is the probability of an A, which requires the student to get a score of 9 or more?
What is the probability the student gets an F by getting less than 4?

Question 2
You have a shuffled deck of three cards: 2, 3, and 4 and you deal out the three cards. Let Ei
denote the event that ith card dealt is even numbered.

1. What is P [E2 |E1 ], the probability the second card is even given that the first card is
even?

2. What is the conditional probability that the first two cards are even given that the
third card is even?

3. Let Oi represent the event that the ith card dealt is odd numbered. What is P [E2 |O1 ],
the conditional probability that the second card is even given that the first card is odd?

Question 3
A diagnostic test has a probability 0.95 of giving a positive result when applied to a person
suffering from a certain disease, and a probability 0.10 of giving a (false) positive when applied
to a non-sufferer. It is estimated that 0.5 % of the population are sufferers. Suppose that the
test is now administered to a person about whom we have no relevant information relating
to the disease (apart from the fact that he/she comes from this population). Calculate the
following probabilities:

1. that the test result will be positive

2. given a positive result, the person is a sufferer

3. given a negative result, the person is a non-sufferer

Question 4
For independent events A and B, prove that

1. A and B c are independent.

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Assignment 1 Winter 2020

2. Ac and B are independent.

Question 5
Deer ticks can carry both Lyme disease and human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE). In a
study of ticks in the Midwest, it was found that 16% carried Lyme disease, 10% had HGE,
and that 10% of the ticks that had either Lyme disease or HGE carried both diseases.

1. Whatistheprobability P [LH] that a tick carries both Lyme disease (L) and HGE (H)?
2. What is the conditional probability that a tick has HGE given that it has Lyme disease?

Question 6
Let X ∼ Binomial(n, p).find an upper bound on P (X > αn)

1. using Markov’s inequality

where p < α < 1. Evaluate the bound for p=12 and α = 34

Question 7
Let X ∼ Exponential(λ). Using Chebyshev’s inequality find an upper bound for P |X − E (X) ≥ b|,
where b > 0

Question 8
Let X,Y and Z be three jointly continuous random variables with joint PDF

x + y 0 ≤ x, y, z ≤ 1
fXY Z (x, y, z) = (1)
0 otherwise

1. Find the joint PDF of X and Y

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Assignment 1 Winter 2020

Question 9
Let X ∼ Exponential(λ). Using Chernoff bounds find an upper bound for P (X > a), where
a > E(X). Compare the upper bound with the actual value of P (X > a).

Question 10
The random variable X has PMF

c/x x = 2, 4, 8
PX (x) = (2)
0 otherwise.

1. What is the value of the constant c?

2. What is P [X = 4]?

3. What is P [X < 4]?

4. What is P [3 6 X 6 9]?

Question 11
The number of buses that arrive at a bus stop in T minutes is a Poisson random variable B
with expected value T/5.

1. What is the PMF of B, the number of buses that arrive in T minutes?

2. What is the probability that in a two-minute interval, three buses will arrive?

3. What is the probability of no buses arriving in a 10-minute interval?

4. How much time should you allow so that with probability 0.99 at least one bus arrives?

Question 12
Voice calls cost 20 cents each and data calls cost 30 cents each. C is the cost of one telephone
call. The probability that a call is a voice call is P [V ] = 0.6. The probability of a data call
is P [D] = 0.4.

1. Find PC (c), the PMF of C.

2. What is E[C], the expected value of C?

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Assignment 1 Winter 2020

Question 13
Show that the variance of Y = aX + b is V ar[Y ] = a2 V ar[X].

Question 14
The probability density function of random variable X is

1/2e−x/2

x≥0
fX (x) = (3)
0 otherwise.

1. What is P [1 6 X 6 2]?

2. Find E[X] and Var[X].