WJEC Further Unit 5 Specimen — Question 7

Exam BoardWJEC
ModuleFurther Unit 5 (Further Unit 5)
SessionSpecimen
TopicMoment generating functions
TypeCalculate moments from PDF

7. The discrete random variable \(X\) has the following probability distribution, where \(\theta\) is an unknown parameter belonging to the interval \(\left( 0 , \frac { 1 } { 3 } \right)\).
Value of \(X\)135
Probability\(\theta\)\(1 - 3 \theta\)\(2 \theta\)
  1. Obtain an expression for \(E ( X )\) in terms of \(\theta\) and show that $$\operatorname { Var } ( X ) = 4 \theta ( 3 - \theta ) .$$ In order to estimate the value of \(\theta\), a random sample of \(n\) observations on \(X\) was obtained and \(\bar { X }\) denotes the sample mean.
    1. Show that $$V = \frac { \bar { X } - 3 } { 2 }$$ is an unbiased estimator for \(\theta\).
    2. Find an expression for the variance of \(V\).
  2. Let \(Y\) denote the number of observations in the random sample that are equal to 1 . Show that $$W = \frac { Y } { n }$$ is an unbiased estimator for \(\theta\) and find an expression for \(\operatorname { Var } ( W )\).
  3. Determine which of \(V\) and \(W\) is the better estimator, explaining your method clearly.