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Cnditional Probability

This document discusses 10 problems involving conditional probability. Problem 6 calculates the probability that a car buyer who purchased an alarm system also purchased bucket seats. Problem 7 uses a contingency table to calculate the probability that a randomly selected person is male, given that they own a pet. Problem 9 uses Bayes' theorem to calculate the probability that a voter who supports the liberal candidate lives in State B, given polling data from 3 different states.

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Ruel Villanueva
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184 views5 pages

Cnditional Probability

This document discusses 10 problems involving conditional probability. Problem 6 calculates the probability that a car buyer who purchased an alarm system also purchased bucket seats. Problem 7 uses a contingency table to calculate the probability that a randomly selected person is male, given that they own a pet. Problem 9 uses Bayes' theorem to calculate the probability that a voter who supports the liberal candidate lives in State B, given polling data from 3 different states.

Uploaded by

Ruel Villanueva
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Conditional Probability

Problem 1:

Solution:
Problem 3:

Problem 4:

Problem 5:

Solution:
Problem 6:
In a group of 100 sports car buyers, 40 bought alarm systems, 30 purchased bucket seats, and
20 purchased an alarm system and bucket seats. If a car buyer chosen at random bought an
alarm system, what is the probability they also bought bucket seats?

Step 1: Figure out P(A). It’s given in the question as 40%, or 0.4.
Step 2: Figure out P(A∩B). This is the intersection of A and B: both happening together. It’s
given in the question 20 out of 100 buyers, or 0.2.
Step 3: Insert your answers into the formula:
P(B|A) = P(A∩B) / P(A) = 0.2 / 0.4 = 0.5.
The probability that a buyer bought bucket seats, given that they purchased an alarm system, is
50%.

Problem 7:
This question uses the following contingency table:

What is the probability a randomly selected person is male, given that they own a pet?
Step 1: Repopulate the formula with new variables so that it makes sense for the question
(optional, but it helps to clarify what you’re looking for). I’m going to say M is for male and PO
stands for pet owner, so the formula becomes:
P(M|PO) = P(M∩PO) / P(PO)
Step 2: Figure out P(M∩PO) from the table. The intersection of male/pets (the intersection on
the table of these two factors) is 0.41.
Step 3: Figure out P(PO) from the table. From the total column, 86% (0.86) of respondents had
a pet.

Step 4: Insert your values into the formula:


P(M|PO) = P(M∩PO) / P(M) = 0.41 / 0.86 = 0.477, or 47.7%.

Problem 8:
In a card game, suppose a player needs to draw two cards of the same suit in order to win. Of
the 52 cards, there are 13 cards in each suit. Suppose first the player draws a heart. Now the
player wishes to draw a second heart. Since one heart has already been chosen, there are now
12 hearts remaining in a deck of 51 cards. So the conditional probability P(Draw second
heart|First card a heart) = 12/51.

Suppose an individual applying to a college determines that he has an 80% chance of being
accepted, and he knows that dormitory housing will only be provided for 60% of all of the
accepted students. The chance of the student being accepted and receiving dormitory housing
is defined by
P(Accepted and Dormitory Housing) = P(Dormitory Housing|Accepted)P(Accepted) =
(0.60)*(0.80) = 0.48.

To calculate the probability of the intersection of more than two events, the conditional
probabilities of all of the preceding events must be considered. In the case of three
events, A, B, and C, the probability of the intersection P(A and B and C) = P(A)P(B|A)P(C|A
and B).

Consider the college applicant who has determined that he has 0.80 probability of acceptance
and that only 60% of the accepted students will receive dormitory housing. Of the accepted
students who receive dormitory housing, 80% will have at least one roommate. The probability
of being accepted and receiving dormitory housing and having no roommates is calculated by:
P(Accepted and Dormitory Housing and No Roommates) = P(Accepted)P(Dormitory
Housing|Accepted)P(No Roomates|Dormitory Housing and Accepted) = (0.80)*(0.60)*(0.20) =
0.096. The student has about a 10% chance of receiving a single room at the college.
Another important method for calculating conditional probabilities is given by Bayes's formula.
The formula is based on the expression P(B) = P(B|A)P(A) + P(B|Ac)P(Ac), which simply states
that the probability of event B is the sum of the conditional probabilities of event B given that
event A has or has not occurred. For independent events A and B, this is equal to P(B)P(A) +
P(B)P(Ac) = P(B)(P(A) + P(Ac)) = P(B)(1) = P(B), since the probability of an event and its
complement must always sum to 1. Bayes's formula is defined as follows:

Problem 9:
Suppose a voter poll is taken in three states. In state A, 50% of voters support the liberal
candidate, in state B, 60% of the voters support the liberal candidate, and in state C, 35% of the
voters support the liberal candidate. Of the total population of the three states, 40% live in
state A, 25% live in state B, and 35% live in state C. Given that a voter supports the liberal
candidate, what is the probability that she lives in state B?

By Bayes's formula,

P(Voter lives in state B|Voter supports liberal candidate) =


P(Voter supports liberal candidate|Voter lives in state B)P(Voter lives in state B)/
(P(Voter supports lib. cand.|Voter lives in state A)P(Voter lives in state A) +
P(Voter supports lib. cand.|Voter lives in state B)P(Voter lives in state B) +
P(Voter supports lib. cand.|Voter lives in state C)P(Voter lives in state C))
= (0.60)*(0.25)/((0.50)*(0.40) + (0.60)*(0.25) + (0.35)*(0.35))
= (0.15)/(0.20 + 0.15 + 0.1225) = 0.15/0.4725 = 0.3175.

Problem 10:

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