Department of Mathematics

Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, Ranchi

MA 301R1 - Probability and Statistics
Session: Monsoon 2025
Tutorial Problem - 2
Instructor: Dr. Ayan Chanda

1. Decide whether a discrete or continuous random variable is the best model for each
of the following:
(a) The time until a projectile returns to Earth.
(b) The number of times a transistor in a computer memory changes state from
one operation to another.
(c) The volume of gasoline that is lost to evaporation during the filling of gas.
(d) The number of molecules in a sample of gas.
(e) The concentration of output from a reactor.
(f) The current in an electronic circuit.
(g) The time for a computer algorithm to assign an image to a category.
(h) The fluid flow rate in litres per minute.
2. Five men and five women are ranked according to their scores on an examination.
Assume that no two scores are alike and all 10! possible rankings are equally likely.
Let X denote the highest ranking achieved by a woman (for instance, X = 2 if
the top-ranked person was male and the next-ranked person was female). Find
P (X = i), i = 1, 2, ..., 10.
3. Let X represent the difference between the number of heads and the number of tails
obtained when a coin is tossed 3 times. What are the possible values of X? Find
the probabilities associated with the values that X can take on.
4. Suppose you roll two dice and observe two numbers X and Y .
(a) Find RX , RY and the probability mass functions (PMFs) of X and Y .
(b) Find P (X = 2, Y = 6).
(c) Find P (X > 3|Y = 2).
(d) Let Z = X + Y . Find the range and PMF of Z.
(e) Find P (X = 4|Z = 8).
5. The distribution function of the random variable X is given by


 0, x<0

x/2, 0≤x<1



F (x) = 2/3, 1≤x<2

11/12, 2 ≤ x < 3





1, x≥3
 (a) Plot this distribution function.
(b) Find P (X > 1/2).
(c) Find P (2 < X ≤ 4).
(d) Find P (X ≤ 3).
(e) Find P (X = 1).

6. Suppose the random variable X has the probability density function

(
cx3 , 0 ≤ x < 1
f (x) =
0, else

(a) Find the value of c. Also, derive the cumulative distribution function F (x).
(b) Find P (0.4 < X < 0.8).

7. The amount of time, in hours, that a computer functions before breaking down is a
continuous random variable with probability density function given by
(
λe−x/100 , x ≥ 0
f (x) =
0, x<0

(a) What is the probability that a computer will function between 50 and 150 hours
before breaking down?
(b) What is the probability that it will function less than 100 hours?

8. The lifetime in hours of a certain kind of radio tube is a random variable having a
probability density function given by
(
0, x ≤ 100
f (x) = 100
x2
, x > 100

What is the probability that exactly 2 of 5 such tubes in a radio set will have to
be replaced within the first 150 hours of operation? Assume that the events Ai ,
1 ≤ i ≤ 5, that the i-th such tube will have to be replaced within this time are
independent.

9. Find the expectation and variance of the following distributions:

(a) Bernoulli Distribution
(b) Binomial Distribution
(c) Geometric Distribution
(d) Poisson Distribution
(e) Uniform Distribution
(f) Normal Distribution

10. Tutorial Question:

Prove the important properties of expectation and variance:

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 (a) E[aX + bY + c] = aE[X] + bE[Y ] + c
(b) E[ ni=1 Xi ] = ni=1 E[Xi ]
P P

(c) E[XY ] = E[X] · E[Y ] if X, Y are independent

(d) Var(aX + c) = a2 Var(X)
(e) Var(X + Y ) = Var(X) + Var(Y ) if X, Y independent
(f) Var(X + Y ) = Var(X) + Var(Y ) + 2 Cov(X, Y )
(g) Cov(X, Y ) = E[XY ] − E[X]E[Y ].

11. Let X represent the number that occurs when a red die is tossed and Y the number
that occurs when a green die is tossed. Find

(a) E(X + Y ), (b) E(X − Y ), (c) E(XY ).

12. Let X represent the number that occurs when a green die is tossed and Y the number
that occurs when a red die is tossed. Find the variance of the random variable

(a) 2X − Y, (b) X + 3Y − 5.

13. A continuous random variable X has the density function

(
e−x , x > 0,
f (x) =
0, elsewhere.

2X
Find the expected value of g(X) = e 3 .

14. The probability distribution of the discrete random variable X is

 
3 1
x 3
3−x
f (x) = , x = 0, 1, 2, 3.
x 4 4

Find the mean of X. Find the expected value of the random variable g(X) = X 2 .

15. It is known that disks produced by a certain company will be defective with prob-
ability 0.01 independently of each other. The company sells the disks in packages
of 10 and offers a money-back guarantee that at most 1 of the 10 disks is defective.
What proportion of packages are returned? If someone buys three packages, what
is the probability that exactly one of them will be returned?

16. A communications system consists of n components, each of which will, indepen-

dently, function with probability p. The total system will be able to operate effec-
tively if at least one-half of its components function.
(a) For what values of p is a 5-component system more likely to operate effectively
than a 3-component system?
(b) In general, when is a 2k + 1 component system better than a 2k − 1 component
system?

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17. Suppose that 10 percent of the chips produced by a computer hardware manufacturer
are defective. If we order 100 such chips, will X, the number of defective ones we
receive, be a binomial random variable?

18. Suppose a fair coin is tossed five times. If in each toss of a coin, getting tails is
considered to be as a success, then compute the following (Hint: Use Bernoulli
Distribution)
(a) Probability of getting 0 tails.
(b) Probability of getting 2 tails.

19. Suppose a fair coin is tossed 10 times, then find the following probabilities (Hint:
Use Binomial Distribution)
(a) The number of heads is a multiple of 3.
(b) The number of heads is even.

20. In Ludo, a player needs to repeatedly throw a fair die till she gets a 1. Find the
following (Hint: Use Geometric Distribution)
(a) The probability that she needs lesser than 6 throws.
(b) The probability that she needs lesser than 11 throws.
(c) The probability that she needs lesser than 21 throws.
 
1
21. Let X be a Geometric random variable with parameter p. Find E X .
2
22. Let X be a continuous random variable with Probability Density Function (PDF)
given by
1
f (x) = e−|x| , for all x ∈ R.
2
If Y = X 2 , find the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) of Y .

23. A customer help center receives on average 3.5 calls every hour. (Hint: Use Poisson
Distribution)
(a) What is the probability that it will receive at most 4 calls every hour?
(b) What is the probability that it will receive at least 5 calls every hour?

24. The number of customers arriving at a grocery store is a Poisson random variable.
On average 10 customers arrive per hour. Let X be the number of customers arriving
from 10 am to 11.30 am. What is P (10 ≤ X ≤ 15)?

25. If the average number of claims handled daily by an insurance company is 5, what
proportion of days have less than 3 claims? What is the probability that there will
be 4 claims in exactly 3 of the next 5 days? Assume that the number of claims on
different days is independent.

26. Let {Xn }n≥1 be independent random variables taking the values 0 and 1 with proba-
bility 1 − p and p, respectively, where p ∈ (0, 1). Let T be a Poisson random variable
with mean λ > 0, independent of {Xn }n≥1 . Let S = X1 + · · · + XT . Show that S is
a Poisson random variable with mean pλ.

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27. If X is uniformly distributed over the interval [0, 10], compute the probability that
(a) 2 < X < 9, (b) 1 < X < 4, (c) X < 5, (d) X > 6.

28. If X is a normal random variable with mean µ = 3 and variance σ 2 = 16, find

(a) P {X < 11}, (b) P {X > −1}, (c) P {2 < X < 7}.

29. A certain type of storage battery lasts, on average, 3 years with a standard deviation
of 0.5 year. Assuming that battery life is normally distributed, find the probability
that a given battery will last less than 2.3 years (Hint: Use Normal Distribution).

30. A certain machine makes electrical resistors having a mean resistance of 40 ohms
and a standard deviation of 2 ohms. Assuming that the resistance follows a normal
distribution and can be measured to any degree of accuracy, what percentage of
resistors will have a resistance exceeding 43 ohms?

31. State Chebyshev’s Theorem. A random variable X has a mean µ = 8, a variance

σ 2 = 9, and an unknown probability distribution. Find

(a) P (−4 < X < 20), (b) P (|X − 8| ≥ 6),

using Chebyshev’s Theorem.

32. Let X and Y be Bernoulli random variable with parameter p and q, respectively,
where 0 < p, q < 1. Assume that X and Y are independent. Find the joint PMF
and joint CDF for X and Y .

33. Consider two random variables X and Y with joint PMF given in Figure 1

Figure 1: Values of P (X = x, Y = y)

(a) Find P (X ≤ 2, Y ≤ 4).

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 (b) Find the marginal PMFs of X and Y .
(c) Find P (Y = 2|X = 1).
(d) Are X and Y independent?

34. The joint density for the random variables X, Y is

(
10xy 2 , 0 < x < y < 1,
f (x, y) =
0, else

(a) Find the marginal densities g(x), h(y), and the conditional densities f (y|x),
f (x|y).
 
1 1
(b) Find P Y > |X = .
2 4

Best wishes

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