DR.

MOHAMED TAHIR
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS
COLLEGE OF SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF SHARJAH

INTRODUCTION TO PROBABILITY & STATISTICS – SECTIONS 12 & 51

PRACTICE PROBLEMS (SET #1)

SPRING SEMESTER OF 2013-2014

PROBLEM #1
The following data represent the breaking strengths (in ounces) of a random sample of linen threads:
28.7 29.5 30.4 21.9 23.0 26.4 27.3 25.6 24.4 25.1 22.3 18.3 29.7 31.8 20.5 19.0
24.3 22.4 26.9 30.6 19.4 20.8 23.5 31.2 21.0 28.3 27.1 25.0 29.2 23.5.
a) Construct an absolute frequency table using classes with width equal to 2.2 ounces and starting at
the smallest breaking strength.
b) Use your answer to part a) to draw a frequency polygon.
c) Give the values of two measures of central location for the given breaking strengths.
d) Give the values of two measures of spread for the given breaking strengths.

PROBLEM #2
Specimens of a certain type of steel conduit were buried in soil for two years. The maximum
penetration for each of 50 specimens are summarized in the following table:
Maximum penetration (in mils) Number of selected specimens
32.5 – less than 37.5 7
– 16
– 11
– 8
– 5
– ----

a) Complete the above table.

b) Construct the relative frequency table.
c) Use the table from part b) to draw a frequency histogram. What is the shape of this histogram?
PROBLEM #3
A civil engineer monitors water quality by measuring the amount of suspended solids in a sample of
river water. Over 10 weekdays which he randomly selected in the months of March and April of 2012,
he observed the following amount of suspended solids (in parts per million):

36 14 12 21 28 30 50 29 45 55.
a) What does the population consist of?
b) Find the standard deviation of the given data.

PROBLEM #3:
Tick the appropriate box:
1) If a sample of size 15 yields  ( xi  x )2  330.93 , then the sample standard deviation
 is equal to 23.638
 is equal to 4.862
 is equal to 4.697
 cannot be determined

2) In a frequency histogram, the frequency of a class is equal to

 the height of the corresponding rectangle
 the width of the corresponding rectangle
 the area of the corresponding rectangle
 the sample size divided by the number of classes

3) The appropriate measure of central location for the continuous data : 68 52 55 65 74

70 520 72 77 85 100 92 80 120 112 60 is the
 mean  median  first quartile  third quartile

4) A city's traffic department is open Sunday through Thursday for the driving test. A random
sample of drivers was selected and the day on which each driver took the driving test was
recorded. The data are summarized in the following table:

Driving test day Number of selected drivers

Sunday 135
Monday 110
Tuesday 75
Wednesday 60
Thursday 20

The data in this problem represent

 the drivers  the driving tests  the driving test days  the traffic departments