POISSON DISTRIBUTION PRACTICE EXAMPLES:
1. Patients arrive at a hospital accident and Emergency department at a random rate of 6 per hour.
(a) Find the probability that during any 90 minute period, the number of patients arriving at the hospital
accident and emergency department is
(i) Exactly 7 (ii) at least 10 ( Ans : [ 0.1171 , 0.4126 ] )
(b) A patient arrives at 11:30 am, find the probability that the next patient arrives at 11:45 am.
( Ans : [ 0.7768 ] )
2. In a Village, Power cuts occur randomly at a rate of 3 per year.
(a) Find the probability that in any given year there will be
(i) Exactly 7 power cuts (ii) At least 4 power cuts ( Ans : [ 0.0216 , 0.3528 ] )
(b) Use a suitable approximation to find the probability that in the next 10 years the number of power
cuts will be less than 20. ( Ans : [ 0.0274 ] )
3. The number of houses sold by an estate agent follows a Poisson distribution with a mean of 2 per
week. Find the probability that in the next 4 weeks the estate agent sells,
(i) Exactly 3 houses (ii) more than 5 houses. { Ans : [ 0.0286 , 0.8088 ] }
4. The number of industrial injuries per working week in a particular factory is known to follow a Poisson
distribution with mean 5. Find the probability that
(a) In a particular week there will be
(i) Less than 2 accidents
(ii) More than 2 accidents { Ans : [ 0.9098 , 0.0144 ] }
(b) In a three week period, there will be no accidents { Ans : [ 0.223 ] }
5. If electricity failures occur according to a Poisson distribution with an average of 3 failures every
twenty weeks. Calculate the probability that there will not be more than one failure during a particular
week. [ Ans : 0.9898 ]
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6. A life insurance sales man sells on the average 3 life insurance policies per week. Use Poisson law to
calculate the probability that in a given week he will sell
(a) Some policies (b) 2 or more policies but less than 5 policies { Ans : [ 0.9502 ,0.6161 ] }
(C) Assume that there are 5 working days per week, what is the probability that in a given day he will sell
one policy ( Ans :0.32929 )
7. The number of radioactive particles emitted in a minute from a meteorite is recorded on a
Geiger counter. The mean number is found to be 3.5 per minute. Using the Poisson
distribution, find the probability that in any one minute there are
(i) no particles, (ii) 2 particles,(iii) at least 5 particles.{ Ans : λ=3.5 ,0.0302 , 0.1849 , 0.276 }
8. A fire station experiences an average call-out rate of 2.2 every period of three hours.
Using the Poisson distribution, find the probability that in any period of 3 hours there will be
(i) no callouts, (ii) 1 callout, (iii) 2 callouts, (iv) 3 callouts,
(v) 4 callouts, { Ans : λ=2.2, 0.1108 , 0.2438 ,0.2681 , 0.1967 }
9. The number of cars passing a point on a country lane has a mean 1.8 per minute. Using the
Poisson distribution, find the probability that in any one minute there are
(i) no cars, (ii) 1 car, (iii) 2 cars, (iv) 3 cars,
Ans:[ λ=1.8 , 0.1653 ,0.2975 , 0.2678 , 0.1607 ]
10. Bacteria are distributed independently of each other in a solution and it is known that the
number of bacteria per millilitre follows a Poisson distribution with mean 2.9.
Find the probability that a sample of 1 ml of solution contains
(i) 0, (ii) 1, (iii) 2, (iv) 3, (v) more than 3 bacteria.
Ans : [ λ=2.9 , 0.0550 ,0.1596 ,0.2314 , 0.2237 , 0.3304 ]
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11. The probability density function of a continuous random variable X is represented
graphically as shown below:
f(x)
2k
Find the:
0 3 5 x
(a) Value of k (03marks)
f (x)
(b) Equations of (03marks)
P(2< x <4 )
(c) (03marks)
(d) Mean of X (03marks)
12. The age of people in a certain country in 2012 were as follows:
Age (years) 0-9 10-14 15-19 20-59 60-64 65-104
Number of people in missions 7.7 4.6 4.4 28.4 2.9 8.0
Calculate the:
(a) Mean, (03marks)
(b) Median, (03marks)
(c) Modal age (04marks)
(d) Number of people under 25 years. (02marks)
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