BINOMIAL PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION

1. A test consists of 10 multiple choice questions with five choices for each
question. As an experiment, you GUESS on each and every answer without even
reading the questions.

What is the probability of getting exactly 6 questions correct on this test?

Solution:
n = 10
r=6
n–r=4
p = 0.20 = probability of guessing the correct answer on a question
q = 1 - p = 0.80 = probability of not guessing the correct answer on a question

2. When rolling a die 100 times, what is the probability of rolling a "4" exactly25 times?

Solution:
n = 100
r = 25
n – r = 75
p = 1/6 = probability of rolling a "4"
q = 1 - p = 5/6 = probability of not rolling a "4"

3. At a certain intersection, the light for eastbound traffic is red for 15 seconds, yellow for 5 seconds, and
green for 30 seconds. Find the probability that out of the next eight eastbound cars that arrive randomly at
the light,exactly three will be stopped by a red light.
Solution:
n=8
r=3
n–r=5
p = 15/50 = probability of a red light
q = 1 - p = 35/50 = probability of not a red light

(1) A company owns 400 laptops. Each laptop has an 8% probability of not working. You randomly select 20
laptops for your salespeople.
(a) What is the likelihood that 5 will be broken? (b) What is the likelihood that they will all work?
(c) What is the likelihood that they will all be broken?

(2) A study indicates that 4% of American teenagers have tattoos. You randomly sample 30 teenagers. What
is the likelihood that exactly 3 will have a tattoo?

(3) An XYZ cell phone is made from 55 components. Each component has a .002 probability of being defective.
What is the probability that an XYZ cell phone will not work perfectly?
(4) The ABC Company manufactures toy robots. About 1 toy robot per 100 does not work. You purchase 35
ABC toy robots. What is the probability that exactly 4 do not work?

(5) The LMB Company manufactures tires. They claim that only .007 of LMB tires are defective. What is the
probability of finding 2 defective tires in a random sample of 50 LMB tires?

(6) An HDTV is made from 100 components. Each component has a .005 probability of being defective. What is
the probability that an HDTV will not work perfectly?
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(1) (a) 20C5 (.08)5 (.92)15 = .0145 (b) 20C0 (.08)0(.92)20 = .1887
(c) 20C20 (.08)20(.92)0 = .0000000000000000000001 (note -22 means move the decimal 22 places to the left)
(2) 30C3 (.04)3 (.96)27 = .0863
(3) Probability that it will work (0 defective components) 55C0 (.002)0 (.998)55 = .896
Probability that it will not work perfectly is 1 - .896 = .104 or 10.4%
(4) 35C4 (.01)4 (.99)31 = .00038
(5) 50C2 (.007)2 (.993)48 = .0428
(6) Probability that it will work (0 defective components) 100C0 (.005)0 (.995)100 = .606
Probability that it will not work perfectly is 1 - .606 = .394 or 39.40%

A coin is tossed 10 times. What is the probability that exactly 6 heads will occur.

1. Success = "A head is flipped on a single coin"

2. p = 0.5
3. q = 0.5
4. n = 10
5. x=6

P(x=6) = 10C6 * 0.5^6 * 0.5^4 = 210 * 0.015625 * 0.0625 = 0.205078125

Example:

What is the probability of rolling exactly two sixes in 6 rolls of a die?

There are five things you need to do to work a binomial story problem.

1. Define Success first. Success must be for a single trial. Success = "Rolling a 6 on a single die"
2. Define the probability of success (p): p = 1/6
3. Find the probability of failure: q = 5/6
4. Define the number of trials: n = 6
5. Define the number of successes out of those trials: x = 2

Poisson Probability Distribution

A manufacturer of television set known that on an average 5% of their product is defective. They sells
television sets in consignment of 100 and guarantees that not more than 2 set will be defective. What
is the probability that the TV set will fail to meet the guaranteed quality? e-5 = 0.0067

Solution:
Success = the TV is defective
X = number of successes
p = probability of success = 5% = 0.05
n = 100 , λ = np = 100 x 0.05 = 5
Poisson Distribution is
P(X=x) = e-λ λx /x! ; x=0,1,2,3,4
Guarantee: X not less than 2 => X= 0,1,2
P(X > 2) = 1- [P(0)+ P(1) + P(2)]
= 1 - e-5 [1 + 5 + 25/2 ]
= 1 - e-5 (37/2)
= 1 - (0.0067) x 37/2
= 1 - 0.12395
= 0.87605

Consider, in an office 2 customers arrived today. Calculate the possibilities for exactly 3 customers to be arrived
on tomorrow.

Step1: Find e-λ.

where,�λ=2 and e=2.718
e-λ = (2.718)-2 = 0.135.
2ws
Step2:�� Find λx.
where, λ=2 and x=3.
λx = 23 = 8.

Step3: Find f(x).

f(x) = e-λλx / x!
f(3) = (0.135)(8) / 3! = 0.18.

Hence there are 18% possibilities for 3 customers to be arrived on tomorrow.

The average number of homes sold by the Acme Realty company is 2 homes per day. What is the
probability that exactly 3 homes will be sold tomorrow?

Solution: This is a Poisson experiment in which we know the following:

 μ = 2; since 2 homes are sold per day, on average.

 x = 3; since we want to find the likelihood that 3 homes will be sold tomorrow.
 e = 2.71828; since e is a constant equal to approximately 2.71828.

We plug these values into the Poisson formula as follows:

P(x; μ) = (e-μ) (μx) / x!

P(3; 2) = (2.71828-2) (23) / 3!
P(3; 2) = (0.13534) (8) / 6
P(3; 2) = 0.180

Thus, the probability of selling 3 homes tomorrow is 0.180 .

A life insurance salesman sells on the average 3 life insurance policies per week. Use Poisson's 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.
c. Assuming that there are 5 working days per week, what is the probability that in a given day he
will sell one policy?
Answer

Here, μ = 3

(a) "Some policies" means "1 or more policies". We can work this out by finding 1 minus the "zero
policies" probability:

P(X > 0) = 1 − P(x0)

Now P(X)=e−μμxx! so P(x0)=e−3300!=4.9787×10−2

Therefore the probability of 1 or more policies is given by:

Probability=P(X≥0)=1−P(x0)=1−4.9787×10−10=0.95021

(b) The probability of selling 2 or more, but less than 5 policies is:

P(2≤X<5)=P(x2)+P(x3)+P(x4)=e−3322!+e−3333!+e−3344!=0.61611

(c) Average number of policies sold per day: 35=0.6

So on a given day, P(X)=e−0.6(0.6)11!=0.32929

HYPERGEOMETRIC PROBABILITY GEOMETRIC

Example 1:
Draw 6 cards from a deck without replacement. What is the probability of getting two hearts?

Solution
Here M = 13 number of hearts
L = 39 number of non-hearts
N = 52 total

13  39 
  
P(2 hearts )     =0.315
2 4
 52 
 
6 

Example 2: Lotto
42 balls are numbered 1 - 42. You select six numbers between 1 and 42. (The ones you write on your lotto
card). 6 balls are selected at random. What is the probability that they contain:

(i) 4 of yours?
(ii) 5 of yours? Answer = 0.00004
(iii) 6 of yours? Answer = 0.00000019

Solution (i)
Total = 42; N = 42

Favourable = 6; M=6

Non-Favourable = 36. L = N - M = 42 – 6 = 36

Sample size n = 6 and x = 4.

 6  36 
  
P(match 4)      .0018
4 2
 42 
 
6 

So odds of about 1 in 555.

Consider, 5 balls are chosen randomly from the total of 10 balls without repetition. Calculate the probability of
getting exactly 2 red balls out of 6 red balls.

Step1:Find [kCx]

where, � N=10, n=6, k=5 and x=2

[kCx] = ( k! / (k-x)!) / x!
= (5! / (5-2)!) / 2! = 20 / 2 = 10.

Step2: Find [N-kCn-x]

where,�N-k=5 and n-x=4

[N-kCn-x] = ((N-k)! / ((N-k)-(n-x))!) / (n-x)!

= ((5! / 1!) / 4!) = 5 / 4! = 5.

Step3: Find [NCn]

where, �N=10 and n=6

[NCn] = ( N! / (N-n)!) / n!)

= ((10! / 4!) / 6!) = 151200 / 6! = 210.

Step4: Find [kCx] [N-kCn-x] / [NCn]

where,

[kCx] = 10, [N-kCn-x] = 5 and [NCn] = 210.

h(x;N;n;k) = [kCx] [N-kCn-x] / [NCn]

= [5C2] [5C4] / [10C6]
= (10 x 5) / 210
= 0.238.
The hypergeometric distribution is used to calculate probabilities when sampling without
replacement. For example, suppose you first randomly sample one card from a deck of
52. Then, without putting the card back in the deck you sample a second and then (again
without replacing cards) a third. Given this sampling procedure, what is the probability
that exactly two of the sampled cards will be aces (4 of the 52 cards in the deck are
aces). You can calculate this probability using the following formula based on the
hypergeometric distribution:

where

k is the number of "successes" in the population

x is the number of "successes" in the sample
N is the size of the population
n is the number sampled
p is the probability of obtaining exactly x successes
kCx is the number of combinations of k things taken x at a time
In this example, k = 4 because there are four aces in the deck, x = 2 because the
problem asks about the probability of getting two aces, N = 52 because there are 52
cards in a deck, and n = 3 because 3 cards were sampled. Therefore,

=
You have 2- PS4 games and 15 Wii-U titles. You grab 4 games at random and Exactly 1 of them is a Wii-U
game. What is the probability of the event?
First use the hypergeometric distribution formula to set up the problem:

Second enter the hypergeometric distribution by entering it into your TI-84 or TI-83 calculator:

Suppose we randomly select 5 cards without replacement from an ordinary deck of playing cards.
What is the probability of getting exactly 2 red cards (i.e., hearts or diamonds)?

Solution: This is a hypergeometric experiment in which we know the following:

 N = 52; since there are 52 cards in a deck.

 k = 26; since there are 26 red cards in a deck.
 n = 5; since we randomly select 5 cards from the deck.
 x = 2; since 2 of the cards we select are red.

We plug these values into the hypergeometric formula as follows:

h(x; N, n, k) = [ kCx ] [ N-kCn-x ] / [ NCn ]

h(2; 52, 5, 26) = [ 26C2 ] [ 26C3 ] / [ 52C5 ]
h(2; 52, 5, 26) = [ 325 ] [ 2600 ] / [ 2,598,960 ] = 0.32513

Thus, the probability of randomly selecting 2 red cards is 0.32513.

Suppose we select 5 cards from an ordinary deck of playing cards. What is the probability of
obtaining 2 or fewer hearts?

Solution: This is a hypergeometric experiment in which we know the following:

 N = 52; since there are 52 cards in a deck.

 k = 13; since there are 13 hearts in a deck.
 n = 5; since we randomly select 5 cards from the deck.
 x = 0 to 2; since our selection includes 0, 1, or 2 hearts.

We plug these values into the hypergeometric formula as follows:

h(x < x; N, n, k) = h(x < 2; 52, 5, 13)

h(x < 2; 52, 5, 13) = h(x = 0; 52, 5, 13) + h(x = 1; 52, 5, 13) + h(x = 2; 52, 5, 13)
h(x < 2; 52, 5, 13) = [ (13C0) (39C5) / (52C5) ] + [ (13C1) (39C4) / (52C5) ] + [ (13C2) (39C3) / (52C5) ]
h(x < 2; 52, 5, 13) = [ (1)(575,757)/(2,598,960) ] + [ (13)(82,251)/(2,598,960) ] + [
(78)(9139)/(2,598,960) ]
h(x < 2; 52, 5, 13) = [ 0.2215 ] + [ 0.4114 ] + [ 0.2743 ]
h(x < 2; 52, 5, 13) = 0.9072
Thus, the probability of randomly selecting at most 2 hearts is 0.9072.
What is the probability of a Formula 1 race finishing with; 2 Ferrari, 2 Renault, and 1 Honda in the top
5 if each team has 5 cars in the race and the race consists of only those teams?

let x1 = # of successful trials of type a

= # of times Ferrari finishes in the top 5
= 2 Ferrari's
let x2 = # of successful trials of type b
= # of times Renault finishes in the top 5
= 2 Renault's
let x3 = # of successful trials of type c
= # of times Honda finishes in the top 5
= 1 Honda
let a = total possible # of elements in type a trial
= # of Ferrari's in the race
=5

let b = total possible # of elements in type b trial

= # of Renault's in the race
=5

let c = total possible # of elements in type c trial

= # of Honda's in the race
=5

n= total # of trials = x1+x2+x3 = 5

= 0.1665

Therefore, probability of this happening is 0.1665.

Example 2

There are five bananas and seven oranges in the refrigerator. Four fruits are chosen at random to
serve guest. What is the probability that exactly two of the fruits will be oranges?

a=# of Oranges

=7

b=# of Bananas
=5

n=# of trials(# of fruits to be chosen)

=4

x=# of successful trials(# of oranges require)=2