1. CHAPTER – 13
PROBABILITY
1. 12 cards numbered 1 to 12 are place in a box and mixed thoroughly and a card is drawn at random. If it is
Know that the number on the card is more than 3, find the probability that it is an even number.
2. A speaks truth in 60% of the cases and B in 90% of the cases. In what percentage of cases are they likely to
contradict each other in stating the same fact ?
3. A die is thrown twice and the sum of the numbers appearing is observed to be 6. What is the probability that the
number 4 has appeared at least once?
4. Probability of solving specific problem by X & Y are
1
2
and
1
3
. If both try to solve the problem, find the probability
that:
(i) Problem is solved. (ii) Exactly one of them solves the problem.
5. Three balls are drawn without replacement from a bag containing 5 white and 4 green balls. Find the probability
distribution of number of green balls.
6. Find the probability distribution of number of sixes in 3 tosses of a die.
7. From a lot of 30 bulbs, which includes 6 defective bulbs, a sample of 3 bulbs is drawn at random with replacement.
Find the probability distribution of number of defective bulbs.
8. A bag contain 4 red & 4 black balls, another bag contains 2 red & 6 black balls. One of the two bags is selected & a
ball is drawn from the bag which is found to be red. Find the probability that the ball is drawn from first bag.
9. A can hit a target 3 times in 6 shots, B : 2 times in 6 shots &C : 4 times in 4 shots. They fire a target. What is the
probability that at least 2 shots hit?
10. A and B throw a die alternately till one of them gets a ‘ 6’ & wins the game. Find their respective probability of
winning, if A starts the game.
11. Two cards are drawn one by one without replacement from a well – shuffled pack of 52 cards. Find the probability
distribution of number of queens.
12. Find the mean & variance of number of heads in three tosses of a coin.
13. A man is known to speak truth 3 out of 4 times. He throws a die & reports that it is a six. Find the probability that it
is actually a six.
14. A problem in mathematics is given to 3 students whose chances of solving it are
1
2
,
1
3
,
1
4
. What is the probability that
the (i) problem is solved (ii) exactly one of them will solve it?
15. There are three urns A, B and C. Urn A contains 4 white balls and 5 blue balls. Urn B contains 4 white balls and 3
blue balls. Urn C contains 2 white balls and 4 blue balls. One ball is drawn from each of these urns. What is the
probability that out of these three balls drawn, two are white balls and one is a blue ball ?
16. Bag I contains 3 red and 4 black balls while another Bag II contains 5 red and 6 black balls. One ball is drawn at
random from one of the bags and it is found to be red. Find the probability that it was drawn from Bag II.
2. 17. A coin is biased so that the head is 3 times as likely to occur as tail. If the coin is tossed twice, find the probability
distribution of number of tails.
18. A family has 2 children. Find the probability that both are boys, if it is known that
(i) At least one of the children is a boy (ii) the elder child is a boy.
19. Three machines E1, E2, E3 in a certain factory produce 50%, 25% and 25% respectively, of the total daily output of
electric tubes. It is known that 4% of the tube produced on each of machines E1 and E2 are defective and that 5% of
those produced on E3 , are defective. If one tube is picked up at random from a day’s production, calculate the
probability that hit is defective.
20. Three cards are drawn at random from a pack of 52 cards . find the probability distribution of numbers of red cards.
Hence find mean.
21. A bag A contains 4 black and 6 red balls and bag b contains 7 black and 3 red balls. A die is thrown, if 1 or 2 appears
on it, then bag A is chosen and otherwise bag B. if two balls are drawn at random from selected bag, find the
probability of one of them being red and other another black.
22. A letter is known to have come from TATANAGAR or KOLKATA. On the envelope, only two consecutive letters TA
are visible. What is the probability that the letter has come from (i) KOLKATA (II) TATANAGAR
23. Three persons A, B and C throw a die in succession till one gets a six and wins the game. Find their respective
probabilities of winning, if A begins.
24. Two numbers are selected at random from the first six positive integers. Let X denotes the larger of the two
numbers. Find E(X)
25. Suppose that 5% of men & 0.25% of women have white hair. A white haired person is selected at random. What is
the probability of this person being male? Assume that there are equal number of males and females.
26. A and B throw alternatively a pair of dice, A wins if he throws 6 before B throws 7 & B wins if he throws 7 before
A throw 6. Find their respective chances of winning , if A begins. [30/61, 31/61]
27. Let X denote the number of colleges where you apply after your results & P (X = x) denotes your probability of
getting admission in x no. Of colleges:
P (X = x) =
𝑘𝑥 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 0 𝑜𝑟 1
2𝑘𝑥 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 2
𝑘(5 − 𝑥) 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 3 𝑜𝑟 4
(i) Find k.
(ii) What is the probability that you will get admission in 2 colleges exactly? Find the probability distribution of
number of doublets in three throws of a pair of dice. Also find mean and variance.
28. Find the probability distribution of number of doublets in three throws of a pair of dice. Also find mean & variance.
29. A random variable x has following probability distribution:
X 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
P(x) 0 k 2k 2k 3k K2
2k2
7k2
+ k
Determine: (i)K (ii) P(x<3) (iii) P(x>6) (iv) P(0<k<3)
3. 30. In a certain college , 4% of boys & 1% of girls are taller than 1.75 meters. Further more, 60% of students are girls. If
a student is selected at random & is taller than 1.75m, what is the probability that the selected student is a girl?
31. A factory has three machines A, B & C which produces 100,200 and 300 items of a particular type. Machines
produces 2%, 3%, and 5% defective items respectively. One day when the production was over, an item was picked
up randomly & it was found to be defective. Find the probability that it was produced by machine A.
32. If A and B are two independent events: P(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) =
2
15
and P(A∩ 𝐵) =
1
6,
, then find P(A) and P(B)
33. A and B throw a pair of die turn by turn. The first to throw 9 is awarded a prize. If A starts the game, show that the
probability of A getting the prize is 9/17.
34. Of the students in a college, it is known that 60% reside in hostel and 40% day scholars (not residing in hostel).
Previous year results report that 30% of all students who reside in hostel attain ‘A’ grade and 20% of day scholars
attain ‘A’ grade in their annual examination. At the end of the year, one student is chosen at random from the
collage and he has an ‘A’ grade, what is the probability that the student is a hosteller?
35. A girl throws a die. If she gets a 5 or 6, she tosses a coin three times and notes the number of heads. If she gets 1, 2,
3 or 4, she tosses a coin two times and notes the number of heads obtained. If she obtained exactly two heads,
what is the probability that she threw 1, 2, 3 or 4 with the die?
36. An insurance company insured 2000 scooter drivers, 4000 car drivers and 6000 truck drivers. The probability of an
accident involving a scooter driver, car driver and a truck driver is 0.01, 0.03 and 0.15 respectively. One of the
insured person meets with an accident. What is the probability that he is a scooter driver?
37. Bag I contains 3 red and 4 black balls and Bag II contains 4 red and 5 black balls. Two balls are transferred at random
from Bag I to Bag II and then a ball is drawn from Bag II. The ball so drawn is found to be red in colour. Find the
probability that the transferred balls were both black.
38. Three bags contain balls as shown in the table below :
Bag Number of White Balls Number of Black
balls
Number of Red
balls
I 1 2 3
II 2 1 1
III 4 3 2
A bag is chosen at random and two balls are drawn from it. They happen to be white and red.
What is the probability that they come from the III Bag?
39. There are three coins. One is two headed coin (having head on both faces), another is a biased coin that comes up tail
25% of the times and third is an unbiased coin. One of the three coins is chosen at random and tossed, it shows heads,
what is the probability that it was the two headed coin?
40. From a lot of 10 bulbs, which includes 3 defectives, a sample of 2 bulbs is drawn at random. Find the probability
distribution of the number of defective bulbs.
4. 41. Coloured balls are distributed in three bags as shown in the following table :
Bag Colour of the Balls
Black White Red
I 1 2 3
II 2 4 1
III 4 5 3
A bag is selected at random and then two balls are randomly drawn from the selected bag. They happen to be black
and red. What is the probability that they came from Bag I?
42. An urn contains 4 white and 3 red balls. Let X be the number of red balls in a random draw of three balls. Find the
mean and variance of X.
43. In answering a question on a multiple choice lest, a student either knows the answer or guesses. Let
3
5
be the
probability that he knows the answer and
2
5
be the probability that he guesses. Assuming that a student who guesses at
the answer will be correct with probability
1
3
, what is the probability that the student knows the answer, given that he
answered it correctly?
44. Two cards are drawn simultaneously from a pack of 52 cards. Compute the mean and standard deviation of the
number of aces.
45. By examining the chest X – ray, the probability that T.B. is detected when a person is actually suffering from it is
0.99. the probability that the doctor diagnosis correctly that a person has T.B. on the basis of X – ray is 0.001. in a
certain city, 1 in 1000 persons suffers from T.B. a person selected at random is diagnosed to have T.B. what is the
chance that the person has actually T.B.