OCR S2 2012 January — Question 8

Exam BoardOCR
ModuleS2 (Statistics 2)
Year2012
SessionJanuary
TopicPoisson Distribution
TypeExplain or apply conditions in context

8 In a certain fluid, bacteria are distributed randomly and occur at a constant average rate of 2.5 in every 10 ml of the fluid.
  1. State a further condition needed for the number of bacteria in a fixed volume of the fluid to be well modelled by a Poisson distribution, explaining what your answer means. Assume now that a Poisson model is appropriate.
  2. Find the probability that in 10 ml there are at least 5 bacteria.
  3. Find the probability that in 3.7 ml there are exactly 2 bacteria.
  4. Use a suitable approximation to find the probability that in 1000 ml there are fewer than 240 bacteria, justifying your approximation.