Repeated trials with selection

Calculate probabilities for outcomes over multiple independent trials of a selection process (e.g., probability that an event occurs exactly k times in n trials).

5 questions · Standard +0.4

5.01a Permutations and combinations: evaluate probabilities
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OCR MEI S1 2006 January Q8
18 marks Standard +0.3
8 Jane buys 5 jam doughnuts, 4 cream doughnuts and 3 plain doughnuts.
On arrival home, each of her three children eats one of the twelve doughnuts. The different kinds of doughnut are indistinguishable by sight and so selection of doughnuts is random. Calculate the probabilities of the following events.
  1. All 3 doughnuts eaten contain jam.
  2. All 3 doughnuts are of the same kind.
  3. The 3 doughnuts are all of a different kind.
  4. The 3 doughnuts contain jam, given that they are all of the same kind. On 5 successive Saturdays, Jane buys the same combination of 12 doughnuts and her three children eat one each. Find the probability that all 3 doughnuts eaten contain jam on
  5. exactly 2 Saturdays out of the 5 ,
  6. at least 1 Saturday out of the 5 .
OCR MEI S1 Q2
18 marks Standard +0.3
2 Jane buys 5 jam doughnuts, 4 cream doughnuts and 3 plain doughnuts.
On arrival home, each of her three children eats one of the twelve doughnuts. The different kinds of doughnut are indistinguishable by sight and so selection of doughnuts is random. Calculate the probabilities of the following events.
  1. All 3 doughnuts eaten contain jam.
  2. All 3 doughnuts are of the same kind.
  3. The 3 doughnuts are all of a different kind.
  4. The 3 doughnuts contain jam, given that they are all of the same kind. On 5 successive Saturdays, Jane buys the same combination of 12 doughnuts and her three children eat one each. Find the probability that all 3 doughnuts eaten contain jam on
  5. exactly 2 Saturdays out of the 5 ,
  6. at least 1 Saturday out of the 5 .
OCR MEI S1 2010 June Q4
6 marks Standard +0.3
4 Each packet of Cruncho cereal contains one free fridge magnet. There are five different types of fridge magnet to collect. They are distributed, with equal probability, randomly and independently in the packets. Keith is about to start collecting these fridge magnets.
  1. Find the probability that the first 2 packets that Keith buys contain the same type of fridge magnet.
  2. Find the probability that Keith collects all five types of fridge magnet by buying just 5 packets.
  3. Hence find the probability that Keith has to buy more than 5 packets to acquire a complete set.
OCR MEI S1 2013 June Q2
8 marks Standard +0.3
2 Every evening, 5 men and 5 women are chosen to take part in a phone-in competition. Of these 10 people, exactly 3 will win a prize. These 3 prize-winners are chosen at random.
  1. Find the probability that, on a particular evening, 2 of the prize-winners are women and the other is a man. Give your answer as a fraction in its simplest form.
  2. Four evenings are selected at random. Find the probability that, on at least three of the four evenings, 2 of the prize-winners are women and the other is a man.
OCR Further Statistics 2018 September Q6
10 marks Standard +0.8
6 A bag contains 7 red counters and 5 blue counters.
  1. Fred chooses 4 counters at random, without replacement. Show that the probability that Fred chooses exactly 2 red counters is \(\frac { 14 } { 33 }\).
  2. Lina chooses 4 counters at random from the bag, records whether or not exactly 2 red counters are chosen, and returns the counters to the bag. She carries out this experiment 99 times.
    1. Find the mean of the number of experiments that result in choosing exactly 2 red counters.
    2. Find the variance of the number of experiments that result in choosing exactly 2 red counters.
    3. Alex arranges all 12 counters in a random order in a straight line. A is the event: no two blue counters are next to one another. B is the event: all the blue counters are next to one another. Find \(\mathrm { P } ( A \cup B )\).