STA2610/103/3/2016

Tutorial Letter 103/3/2016

Statistical Distribution

STA2610
Semesters 1 & 2
Department of Statistics

TRIAL EXAMINATION PAPER

BAR CODE

Learn without limits.

university
of south africa

Dear students,
This tutorial letter aims to help you prepare for the examination, by giving you the solutions to a
trial examination paper. We will first give you the paper, and follow up by the model solutions. We
suggest that as part of your preparations for the examination, you attempt the exam paper under
examination conditions that is, without referring to the study guide or the text book, and trying to
complete it in the allocated time of 2 hours. This will give you a good idea of which parts of the
material you are struggling with. Remember that you learn much more by attempting to solve the
questions yourself rather than by just reading the solutions!
Here are a couple of more reminders to help you prepare for the examination:
You can access previous semesters examination papers on the modules myUnisa web site
(under Official Study material). We will not provide memos for these papers, however you are
welcome to send your attempts at any of the questions to your lecturers for feedback.
There will be no list of formulas in the examination paper.
You will be given tables of binomial and normal probabilities at the end of the examination
paper. Please see the previous examination papers to see the format of the tables, and
familiarise yourself on how to use them.
Similarly, get familiar with your calculator before the examination.
You should make sure you understand all parts of the study material which form part of the
syllabus. Do not try to guess what will be asked and what not.
Should you have any queries, do contact your lecturer but do not leave it too late!

With our best wishes,

Your STA2610 lecturers

Questions to Trial Examination Paper

Question 1
(a) A certain kind of appliance requires repairs on the average once every three years. Assuming
that the times between repairs are exponentially distributed, what is the probability that such
an appliance will work at least five years without requiring repairs?
(b) In the inspection of a fabric produced in continuous rolls, there is, on average, one imperfection per metre. Assuming that the number of imperfections is a random variable having
a Poisson distribution, find the probability that 5 metres of the fabric will have at most two
imperfections.

STA2610/103

Question 2
(a) In southern California, a growing number of individuals pursuing teaching credentials are
choosing paid internships over traditional student teaching programs. A group of eight candidates for three local teaching positions consisted of five who had enrolled in paid internships
and three who enrolled in traditional student teaching programs. All eight candidates appear
to be equally qualified, so three are randomly selected to fill the open positions. Let Y be the
number of internship trained candidates who are hired.
(i) Does Y have a binomial or hypergeometric distribution? Why?
(ii) Find the probability that two or more internship trained candidates are hired.
(iii) What is the mean of Y ?
(b) To verify the accuracy of their accounting entries, a company uses auditors for verification on
a regular basis. The companys employees make erroneous entries 8% of the time. Suppose
that an auditor randomly checks four entries.
(i) Find the probability distribution for Y , the number of errors detected by the auditor.
(ii) Find the probability that the auditor will detect more than one error.
Question 3
Let Y be a random variable with support f1; 2; 3; 4; 5g whose probability function p.y/ is given in the
table below. (One value is omitted.)
y
p .y/

1
0:2

2
0:1

3
0:1

5
0:4

sum

Find
(a) P.Y D 4/:
(b) P.Y is odd/:
(c) P.Y

2jY is odd/:

(d) E.Y /
(e) V .Y /
(f) E .2Y /
Question 4
The density function of Y is given by
f Y .y/ D
Find the density function for U D 3Y

3 2
2y

1 y 1
elsewhere.

1, using the method of distribution functions.

Question 5
The joint density function for the random variables X and Y for the area 0 < x < 2; 0 < y < 3 is

f X;Y .x; y/ D

xCy
:
15

(a) Find the joint distribution function FX;Y .x; y/ in the region 0 < x < 2; 0 < y < 3.
(b) Calculate P.X

1; Y

2/:

(c) Find the marginal distribution function FY .x/ of Y:

(d) Find the condition density function f X=Y .xjy/:

STA2610/103

Solutions to Trial Examination Paper

Question 1
(a) Let Y denote the time until the appliance first requires repairs. Then Y has the exponential
distribution with parameter D 3; with density function
1
y
1
f .y/ D e 3 ; y
3

0:

5/ ; which can be calculated as

0 1 11
1
5
y
y
1
e 3 dy D @e 3 A dy D e 3 0:18888:
3

The probability we want here is P .Y

P .Y

5/ D

Alternatively we can use the distribution function of the exponential distribution: F .y/ D
5
1 e 3 and therefore
5
P .Y 5/ D 1 f .5/ D e 3 :
(b) The number of imperfections per metre has the Poisson distribution with parameter D 1;
and the number of imperfections per five metres, X; has the Poisson distribution with the
parameter 5 1 D 5: Therefore
P .X D k/ D

5 5k

k!

k D 1; 2; : : :

and the probability requested here is

P .X

2/ D P .X D 0/ C P .X D 1/ C P .X D 2/
D

5 50

0!

5 51

1!

5 52

2!

37
e
2

0:124 65:

Question 2
(a)

(i) The random variable Y follows a hypergeometric distribution, since the population from
which the sample is selected is considered to be finite: the probability of being chosen
on a trial is dependent on the outcome of previous trials. The parameters are N D 8I
n D 3I r D 5 and
r
N r
y
n y
P .Y D y/ D
:
N
n

(ii)

P.Y

5
2

2/ D P.Y D 2/ C P.Y D 3/ D

5!
2!3!

3!
1!2!
8!
3!5!

3
1
8
3

5
3

3
0
8
3

5!
.1/
3!2!
8!
3!5!

D 0:5357 C 0:1786 D 0:7143

(b)

(i) Y has the Binomial distribution with the following parameters: p D 0:08; q D 1
n D 4; and the probability function is
p .y/ D

n y n
p q
y

(ii)
P.Y > 1/ D p.2/ C p.3/ C p.4/
D

4
0:082 0:924
2

4
0:083 0:924
3

4
0:084 0:924
4

D 0:03250176 C 0:00188416 C 0:00004096

D 0:03442688
or, alternatively,
P.Y > 1/ D 1
D 1
D 1

p.0/

p.1/

4
0:080 0:924
0
0:71639296

4
0:081 0:924
1

0:24918016 D 0:03442688:

Question 3
(a) Since the sum of probabilities has to sum up to 1,
P.Y D 4/: D 1

p.1/

p.2/

p.3/

p.5/ D 0:2:

The completed table of probability functions is as given below.

y
1
2
3
4
5 sum
p.y/ 0:2 0:1 0:1 0:2 0:4 1:0

p D 0:92;

STA2610/103

(b) P.Y is odd/ D p.1/ C p.3/ C p.5/ D 0:2 C 0:1 C 0:4 D 0:2
(c)
P.Y

2jY is odd/ D

p.Y D 1 and Y is odd/

p.Y D 1/
0:2
2
D
D
D
p.Y odd/
p.Y odd/
0:7
7

(d)
5
X

E.Y / D

yD1

yp.y/ D 3:5

(e)
E.Y 2 / D
V .Y / D E.Y 2 /

5
X
yD1

y 2 p.y/ D 14:7;

[E.Y /]2 D 14:7

.3:5/2 D 2:45:

(f)
5
X
E.2 / D
2 y p.y/ D 17:6
y

yD1

Question 4
The density function of Y is given by
f Y .y/ D

3 2
2y

1 y<1
elsewhere.

Using the method of distribution functions, we first find the distribution function FU .u/ of U: By
definition,
uC1

FU .u/ D P .U

u/ D P .3Y

u/ D P Y

uC1
3

Z3

f Y .y/ dy:

To set the limits of integration, we note that for the transformation u D 3y 1; when y D
and when y D C1; u D C2. Therefore,
when u <

1; u D

4I

4;
uC1

FU .u/ D

Z3

0dy D 0I

when

2;
uC1

FU .u/ D

Z3
1

3 2
y dy D
2

1 3
y
2

uC1
3
1

1
2

uC1 3
3

1
1
1
. 1/3 D
.u C 1/3 C
2
54
2

when u > 2;
FU .u/ D

Z1

3 2
y dy D 1:
2

That is,

FU .u/ D

8
0;
>
>
>
>
>
<

1
54

>
>
>
>
>
: 1

.u C 1/3 C

1
2

u<

u>2

The density function is found by differentiating the distribution function with respect to the
variable u :
8
0;
u< 4
>
>
>
>
>
< d
d
1
1
1
fU .u/ D
FU .u/ D
D
4 u 2
.u C 1/3 C
.u C 1/2
54
>
du
du
2
18
>
>
>
>
:
0
u>2
Question 5
f X Y .x; y/ D

xCy
;
15

0 < x < 2;

0<y<3

(a) In the region 0 < x < 2, 0 < y < 3 the joint distribution function is given by

FX Y .x; y/ D

y
0

1
uCv
dvdu D
15
15

1
15

1
x 2 y C y2 x ;
30

1 2
1
u y C y2u
2
2

1
uv C v 2
2

1
15

1
du D
15
0

1
uy C y 2 du
2

1 2
1
x y C y2 x
2
2

0 < x < 2;

0 < y < 3:

(b)
P.X

1; Y

2/ D FX Y .1; 2/ D

1
1
1 2
.1 2 C 22 1/ D
6D :
30
30
5

Alternatively, you can integrate again:

P.X

1; Y

2/ D

1Z 2
0

1
xCy
d xdy D : : : D
15
5

but since the distribution function is already know, rather use it to calculate the probability.

STA2610/103

(c)
f Y .y/ D
and therefore

2
xCy
dx D
.y C 1/ ; 0 < y < 3
15
15

8
0;
>
< R
1
y 2
FY .y/ D
y .y C 2/ ;
.y C 1/ dy D
0
>
15
15
:
1;

Alternatively,

FY .y/ D FX Y .2; y/ D
and FY .y/ D 0 for y

1
.2y C y 2 /;
15

0<y<3
y

0 < y < 3;

0; FY .y/ D 1 for y

3:

(d)
FX jY .x; y/ D

f X Y .x; y/
; f Y .y/ 6D 0:
f Y .y/

Here, f X Y .x; y/ is given, and depending on how you answered (c) you will either already
calculated f Y or can find it by taking the derivative of the marginal distribution function F y.y/:
d
f Y .y/ D
FY .y/ D
dy

( 1
.4 C 4y/;
30
0;

0 < y < 3;
elsewhere

Therefore we get

FX jY .xjy/ D

8
>
>
>
<

1
15 .x C y/
1
30 .4 C 4y/

>
>
>
: 0

xCy
;
2 C 2y

0 < x < 2; 0 < y < 3

elsewhere