BFC 34303 CIVIL ENGINEERING STATISTICS

Tutorial 2

Topics covered:
Probability (Chapter 2) and Random Variables & Probability Distributions (Chapter 3)

1. Events J, K, L and M are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. If Q and R are events
defined by Q = (J ∪ M) and R = (K ∪ L), show that

(a) P(Q ∩ R) = 0
(b) P(Q ∪ R) = 1

2. 20 university lecturers and students are attending a seminar. 10 of them are undergraduates, 4 of
them are postgraduates and the remainder are lecturers. If every person is equally likely to ask a
question during the Q&A session and can only ask one question each, find the probability that

(a) a lecturer will ask a question first.

(b) a student will ask a question first.
(c) an undergraduate will ask a question second after a lecturer or postgraduate had asked a
question first.

3. A construction company employs 2 sales engineers. Engineer 1 does the work in estimating cost
for 70% of jobs bid by the company. Engineer 2 does the work for 30% of jobs bid by the
company. It is known that the error rate for Engineer 1 is such that 0.02 is the probability of an
error when he does the work, whereas the probability of an error in the work of Engineer 2 is 0.04.
Suppose a bid arrives and an error occurs in estimating cost. Which engineer would you guess
most probably did the work?

4. Records show that 80% of all drivers who have been summoned for various traffic offences are
males. 17% are drivers below 30 years old, with 13% male drivers who are below 30 years. If a
driver who is summoned is randomly selected, what is the probability that the driver is a male or
below 30 years old or both?

5. A spot speed survey was conducted along a street with a 70 km/hour speed limit during a one-
hour off-peak period. The results are as follows:

Speed (km/hour) Cars Lorries Buses

< 50 63 21 4
50 – 70 46 14 10
> 70 87 8 17

Calculate the probability of

(a) a vehicle traveling between 50 and 70 km/hour along the street.

(b) a bus traveling below 50 km/hour along the street.
(c) a heavy vehicle exceeding the speed limit along the street.
(d) a vehicle complying with the speed limit along the street.
6. 30 out of 100 soil samples taken from a construction site were tested and found to be highly
permeable. 10 of them had large composition of coarse sand. Only 4 soil samples that were not
highly permeable had large composition of coarse sand. Find the probability that a soil sample

(a) is highly permeable given that the soil sample had a large composition of coarse sand.
(b) will not have a large composition of coarse sand if the soil sample is highly permeable.

7. Goh, Harjit and Izzat were asked to collect 40 samples of water from a nearby river. They
collected 22, 12 and 6 samples respectively. The probability that Goh, Harjit and Izzat collects a
contaminated sample is 0.35, 0.15 and 0.10 respectively. Determine the probability that a
contaminated sample randomly selected from the 40 samples was collected by Goh.

8. The table below shows the probability distribution of private automobile ownership per household
obtained from surveys conducted in several cities.

Private automobile ownership

0 1 2 3 4
per household, x
P(X=x) N 0.54 0.21 0.10 0.05

(a) If a city has a population of 1.2 million, how many of the city dwellers will probably not own a
private automobile?
(b) Calculate the mean and standard deviation of this probability distribution.
(c) Construct the cumulative distribution function of X.
(d) If a city dweller is randomly selected, what is the probability that he or she owns not more
than two private automobiles?

9. The continuous random variable X has a pdf as follows:

1 − 𝑘𝑥, 0<𝑥<2
𝑓(𝑥) = { }
0, 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒

(a) Find the value of k.

(b) Construct the cdf of X.
(c) Determine the probability of X being
(i) at least 1
(ii) between 0.5 and 1.5

10. The probability density function of a continuous random variable X is given below:

3 √𝑥
𝑓(𝑥) = { 16 , 0 < 𝑥 < 4 }
0, 𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒

(a) Evaluate P(2 < X < 3).

(b) Calculate E(2X + 1) and Std(3X – 2).