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(b) Estimate the probability that the bank will lose more than 25 cents in 100 rolls.
Let Z be the loss on 100 rolls, then Z = X1 + X2 + ... + X100 , where Xi is the loss on roll i. All Xi
are independent and have the same distribution.
According to the Central Limit Theorem Z then have a normal distribution with mean 100 · 0.2 = 20
and variance 100 · 0.36 = 36.
Then
P (Z > 25) = 1 − P (Z ≤ 25) = 1 − N20,36 (25) = 1 − N0,1 (5/6)
(c) Estimate the probability that the bank will lose exactly 25 cents in 100 rolls.
Here are two acceptable answers:
Using the normal approximation, P (Z = 25) ≈ 0 because Z is approximately normally distributed, and
the probability that a continuous random variable is exactly equal to a number is zero.
Another acceptable solution is this:
(d) Estimate the probability that the bank will lose any money in 100 rolls.
(e) How many rolls does the bank need to collect to have a 99 percent chance of a net loss?
Let Zn be the loss of the bank on n rolls, then
√
P (Zn ≥ 0) = 1 − N0.2n,0.36n (0) = N0,1 (0.2/0.6 n) ≥ 0.99.
√
If 0.2/0.6 n ≥ 2.33 the probability of a net loss is at least 0.99. Therefore
√
n ≥ 3 · 2.33
and n ≥ 48.9, i.e. the bank has to collect 50 rolls to have a 99% probability of a net loss.
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2 Central Limit Theorem - again
A true-false examination has 48 questions. June has probability 3/4 of answering a question correctly. April
just guesses on each question. A passing score is 30 or more correct answers. Compare the probability that
June passes the exam with the probability that April passes it. June’s score has distribution B48,.75 , so the
probability that June’s score is 30 or more is 1 − B48,.75 (29) = 0.9627. In case your calculator doesn’t give
an answer, you will have to use a normal approximation to the Binomial distribution (based on the Central
Limit Theorem):
29 − 36
B48,.75 (29) ≈ N48·.75,48·.75·.25 (29) = N36,9 (29) = N0,1 √ = N0,1 (−2.33) = 0.0264,
9
which results in an overall probability of 0.9736.
April’s score has distribution B48,.5 , so the probability that April’s score is 30 or more is 1 − B48,.5 (29) =
0.0297, or based on the approximation
12 − 29
P (A ≥ 29) ≈ 1 − N12,9 (29) = 1 − N0,1 = 7.6e − 09.
3
In any case, June has a much better chance of passing the exam than April.
we won’t find this probability in a table, since n is so large. Instead, we are using a normal approximation.
B300,0.3 ≈ N300·0.3,300·0.3·0.7 . Then:
80 − 90
P (X ≤ 80) = B300,0.3 (80) ≈ N90,63 (80) = N0,1 ( √ )=
63
= N0,1 (−1.26) = 1 − N0,1 (1.26) = 1 − 0.9131 = 0.0869.
The rookie therefore has a probability of approx. 9% to show a batting average of 0.267, even though his true
standard is 0.3. Whether this is enough reason to send him back is a different question - but if the probability
was even lower ( less than 5% or less than 1%, maybe), the trainer should send him back to the minors.
2
Each customer can be considered a Bernoulli trial, denoted by X.
E[X] = .2
2
σX = .2(.8) = .16
If we add 400 of these together, we can use the central limit theorem and assume that it will be
approximately normal:
E[Y ] = 400E[X] = 80
σY2 = 400σX
2
= 64
q
σY = σY2 = 8
Since 95% is conveniently two standard deviations from the mean, our maximum distance from the
mean is 16 pies, giving a range of 64–96 pies.
(b) How many customers must the restaurant have, on the average, to be at least 95 percent sure that the
number of customers ordering pie on that day falls in the 19 to 21 percent range?
Given n, customers, we have the following the the distribution of the total number of pies: