OCR MEI S2 2011 June — Question 2

Exam BoardOCR MEI
ModuleS2 (Statistics 2)
Year2011
SessionJune
TopicPoisson Distribution
TypeExplain or apply conditions in context

2 At a drive-through fast food takeaway, cars arrive independently, randomly and at a uniform average rate. The numbers of cars arriving per minute may be modelled by a Poisson distribution with mean 0.62.
  1. Briefly explain the meaning of each of the three terms 'independently', 'randomly' and 'at a uniform average rate', in the context of cars arriving at a fast food takeaway.
  2. Find the probability of at most 1 car arriving in a period of 1 minute.
  3. Find the probability of more than 5 cars arriving in a period of 10 minutes.
  4. State the exact distribution of the number of cars arriving in a period of 1 hour.
  5. Use a suitable approximating distribution to find the probability that at least 40 cars arrive in a period of 1 hour.