Unit 4 – Probability

Q. One card is drawn from a standard pack of 52. What is the probability that it is
either a king or a queen ?

Ans. 2/13

Q . A person is known to hit the target in 3 out of 4 shots where as another person
is known to hit the target 2 out of 3 shots. Find the probability of target being hit
at all when they both try.

Ans. 11/12

Q. Calculate the probability of picking a card that was a heart or a spade.

Ans. 1/2

Q. What is the probability of picking a card that was red or black ?

Ans. 1

Q. The management of Vaishali welfare association formed a committee of 5

persons to look into the electricity problem. Profile of the 5 persons are :

(i) Male, 40 years

(ii) Male 43 years
(iii) Female 38 years
(iv) Female 27 years
(v) Male 65 years
If a chairperson has to be selected from this, what would be probability that
chairman would be either female or over 30 ?

Ans : 1

Q. A bag contains 30 balls numbered from 1 to 30. One ball is drawn at random.
Find the probability that the number of the ball drawn will be multiple of (a) 5 or
7 and (b) 3 or 7

Ans . (a) 1/3 (b) 13/30

Q. A man wants to marry a girl having qualities: Fair complexion - the probability
of getting such a girl is one in twenty, good salary - the probability of getting this
is one in fifty, good communication skills - the probability of getting this is one in
hundred. Find out the probability of getting married to such a girl when the
possession these three attributes is independent.

Ans: .00001

Q. A problem in statistics is given to 5 students A, B, C, D and E. Their chances of

solving it are 1/2 , 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 and 1/6 . What is the probability that the problem
will be solved ?

Ans : 5/6

Q. A bag contains 5 white and 3 black balls. 2 balls are drawn at random one after
the other without replacement. Find the probability that both balls drawn are
black.

Ans : 3/28
Q. Find the probability of drawing a queen, a king and a knave in that order from a
pack of cards in 3 consecutive draws, the cards drawn not being replaced.

Ans : 64/132600

Q. A bag contains 6 white 4 red and 10 black balls. 2 balls are drawn at random.
Find the probability that both will be black.

Ans : 45/190

Q. A bag contains 8 white and 4 red balls. 5 balls are drawn at random. What is
the probability that 2 of them are red and 3 white ?

Ans : 14/33

Q. Three horses A B and C are in a race. A is twice as likely to win as B and B is it

twice as likely to win as C. What are the respective probability of winning?

Ans : 4/7 , 2/7 , 1/7

Q. One bag contains 4 white and 2 black balls. If one ball is drawn from each bag,
find the probability that ( a) both are white ( b) both are black and (c) one is white
and one is black.

Ans : (a) 1/4 (b) 5/24 (c) 13/24

Q. A and B play for a prize of rupees one thousand. A is to throw a dice first and is
to win if he throws 6. If he fails be is to throw and is to win if he throws 6 or 5. If
he fails, A is to throw again and to win if he throws 6, 5 or 4 and so on. Find the
respective expectations.

Ans : A’s expectation = 169/324 ( Rs 521.6) , B’s expectation = 155/324 ( Rs

478.4)

Q. A bag contains 2 white and 3 black balls. Four persons A, B, C and D in the
order named each draw one ball and do not replace it. The person to draw a
white ball receives rupees 200. Determine their expectations.

Ans : Expectations of A, B , C & D are 2/5 ( Rs 80), 3/10 (Rs 60) , 1/5 ( Rs 40 )
,1/10 (Rs 20 ) respectively

Q. A box contains 3 red and 7 white balls. One ball is drawn at random and in its
place a ball of other colour is put in the box. Now one ball is drawn at random
from the box. Find the probability that it is red.

Ans : 34/100

Q. Five men in a group of 20 are graduates. If 3 men are picked out of 20 at

random. (A) what is the probability that all are graduates ? and (B) what is the
probability of at least one being graduate ?

Ans : 37/64

Q. What is the probability that a leap year selected at random will contain 53
Sundays?

Ans : 2/7
 Q A University has to select an examiner from a list of 50 persons, 20 of them are
women and 30 of them are men, 10 of them knowing hindi and 40 persons do not
know Hindi, 15 of them being teachers and remaining 35 are not teachers. What
is the probability of University selecting a Hindi knowing women teacher?

Ans : 3/125

Q. A bag contains 10 white and 6 black balls. 4 balls are successively drawn out
and not replaced. What is the probability that they are alternately of different
colours?

Ans : 90/728

Q. A can solve 90% of the problems given in a book and B can solve 70% of the
problems given in a book. What is the probability that at least one of them will
solve a problem selected at random?

Ans : 97/100

Q. Assume that a factory has two machines. Fast record shows that machine 1
produces 30% of the items of output and machine 2 produces 70% of the items of
output. Further, 5% of the items produced by machine 1 were defective and only
1% of the item produced by machine 2 were defective. If a defective item is
drawn at random, what is the probability that the defective item was produced by
machine 1 or machine 2 ?

Ans : .682 ( machine 1 ) , .318 ( machine 2)

Q. In a bolt factory machines A, B and C manufacture respectively 25% , 35% and

40% bolts. Of the total output , 5%, 4% and 2 % are defective bolts. A bolt is
drawn at random from the product and it is found to be defective. What is the
probability that it was manufactured by Machine A , B & C ?
Ans : .362 ( Machine A) , .406 ( Machine B) , .232 ( Machine C)

Q. A bag contains 4 black and 1 white ball. Another bag contains 5 black and 4
white balls. One ball has been taken out from one of the bags and found black.
What is the probability that it came from first bag ?

Ans : 36/61

Q. Bag 1 contains 3 red and 4 black balls while Bag 2 contains 5 red and 6 black
balls. One ball is drawn at random from one of the bag and it is found to be red.
Find the probability that it was drawn from bag 2.

Ans : 35/68

Probability Distribution
Q. If the probability of defective bolts is 0.1, find the mean and standard deviation
for the distribution of defective bolts in a total of 500.

Ans . Mean : 50

SD : 6.71

Q. The incidence of a certain disease is such that on an average 20% of workers

suffer from it. If 10 workers are selected at random, find the probability that (a)
exactly two workers suffer from the disease (b) not more than two workers suffer
from the disease

Ans : (a) .302 ( b) .678

Q. Suppose on an average one house in 1000 in a certain district has a fire during
a year. If there are 2000 houses in that district, what is the probability that exactly
5 houses will have a fire during the year?

Ans: .036

Q. The probability that an evening college student will graduate is 0.4. Determine
the probability that out of 5 students (a) none (b) one and (c) at least one will be
graduate

Ans : (a) .07 (b) .259 (c) .93

Q. Assuming that half of the population is vegetarian therefore the chance of an

individual being a vegetarian is ½ and assuming that 100 investigators can take
sample of 10 individuals to see whether they are vegetarians, how many
investigators would you expect to report that three or less people were
vegetarians?

Ans : 17.2( 17)

Q. Out of 800 families with 4 children each, what percentage would be expected
to have (a) 2 boys and 2 girls (b) at least one boy (c) no girls and (d) at the most 2
girls. Assume equal probabilities for boys and girls.

Ans : (a) 37.5 % (b) 93.75 % (c) 6.25 % (d) 68.75 %

Q. 8 coins are thrown simultaneously. Find the probability of obtaining (a)at least
six heads (b)No heads (c) all heads

Ans : (a) 37/256 (b) 1/256 (c) 1/256

Q. In a town 10 accidents took place in a span of 50 days. Assuming that the

number of accidents per day follows poisson distribution, find the probability that
there will be three or more accidents in a day.

Ans : .001

Q. The incidence of occupational disease in an industry such that the work man
have a 20% chance of suffering from it. What is the probability that out of 6
workmen, 4 or more will contact the disease?

Ans : .0169
Q. Assume the mean height of soldiers is 68.22 inches with a variance of 10.8
inches. How many soldiers in a regiment of thousand would you expect to be over
6 feet tall ?

Ans 125

Q . In an intelligence test administered to 1000 students, the average score was

42 and standard deviation was 24. Find (a) the number of students exceeding a
score of 50 (b) the number of students lying between 30 and 54 , (c) the value of
score exceeded by the top 100 students.

Ans : (a) 369.6 ( 370 Students) (b) 383 students (c) 72.72

Q. In a distribution exactly normal, 7% of the items are under 35 and 89% items
are under 63. What is the mean and standard deviation of the distribution?

Ans : mean : 50.3 SD : 10.33

Q. The mean weight of 500 male students in a certain college is 151 pounds and
the standard deviation is 15 pounds . Assuming that the weights are normally
distributed, find how many students have weight (a) between 120 and 155
pounds and (b)more than 185 pounds ?

Ans (a) 291 students(approx) (b) 5.35 ( 5 students Approx)

Q. The result of a particular examination show that 10% of the candidates passed
with distinction, 60% of the candidates are passed and 30% of the candidates are
failed. It is known to us that a candidate gets plugged if he obtains less than 40
marks out of 100 while he must obtain at least 75 marks in order to pass with
distinction. Determine the mean and standard deviation of the distribution of
marks assuming that marks follow normal distribution.

Ans : Mean : 50.17 SD : 19.4

Q. A project yields an average cash flow of Rs 500 lacs with standard deviation of
Rs 60 lacs. Calculate following probabilities :

a) Cash flow will be more than 560 lacs

b) Cash flow will be less than 420 lacs

c) Cash flow will be between 460 lacs and 540 lacs

d) Cash flow will be more than 680 lacs

Assume data is normally distributed.

Ans : (a) .1587 (b) .0918 c) .4972 d) .0013

Q. A coin is tossed 6 times. What is the probability of obtaining four or more

heads ?

Ans : .344
Q. 10% of the tools produced in a certain manufacturing process turn out to be
defective. Find the probability that in a sample of 10 tools chosen at random,
exactly two will be defective by using (a) the binomial distribution and (b) poisson
distribution

Ans : (a) .193 (b) .184

Q. Suppose that a manufactured product has two defects per unit of product
inspected. Using poisson distribution, calculate the probability of finding a
product (a) without defect , (b) three defects and (c) four defects.

Ans : (a) .135 (b) .18 ( c) .09

Q. The income of a group of 10000 persons was found to be normal distributed

with mean of Rs 750 per month and standard deviation of Rs 50. Show that of this
group about 95% had income exceeding Rs 668 and only 5% had income
exceeding Rs 832. What was the lowest income among the richest 100 ?

Ans : Rs 866.50

Q. As a result of tests on 20000 electric bulbs manufactured by a company, it was

found that the lifetime of the bulb was normally distributed with an average life
of 2040 hours and standard deviation of 60 hours. On the basis of this
information, calculate the number of bulbs that are expected to burn for (a) more
than 2150 hours and (b) less than 1960 hours .

Ans : (a) 666 bulbs

 (b) 1836 bulbs

Q. If on an average 8 ships out of 10 arrive safely at a port. Find the mean and
standard deviation of the number of ships arrive safely out of a total of 1600
ships.

Ans: mean = 1280 SD = 16

Q. Of a large group of men 5% are under 60 inches in height and 40% are in
between 60 and 65 inches. Assuming a normal distribution, find the mean height
and standard deviation.

Ans : Mean = 65.42

SD = 3.3

Q. Example of hundred drive battery cells tested to find the length of life
produced the following results:

Mean = 12 hours

Standard deviation= 3 hours

Assuming the data to be normally distributed what percentage of battery cells are
expected to have life (a) more than 15 hours , (b)less than 6 hours and (c)
between 10 and 14 hours ?
Ans : (a) 15.87% (b) 2.28 % (c) 49.75%

Q. Of a large group of men 4% are 60 in height and 40% are between 60 and 65
inches. Assuming a normal distribution, find the mean height and standard
deviation.

Ans: Mean = 12.65

SD = 3.29