Stats1 Chapter 6 :: Statistical

Distributions
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Last modified: 15th November 2019

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Experimental Chp2: Measures of Chp3: Representation
i.e. Dealing with collected data.
Location/Spread of Data
Chp1: Data Collection Statistics used to summarise Producing and interpreting
data, including mean, visual representations of
Methods of sampling, types standard deviation, quartiles, data, including box plots and
of data, and populations vs percentiles. Use of linear histograms.
samples. interpolation for estimating
medians/quartiles. Chp4: Correlation
Measuring how related two
variables are, and using linear
Theoretical regression to predict values.
Deal with probabilities and modelling to make inferences about what we ‘expect’ to see or make
predictions, often using this to reason about/contrast with experimentally collected data.

Chp5: Probability Chp6: Statistical Chp7: Hypothesis

Venn Diagrams, mutually Distributions Testing
exclusive + independent Common distributions used to Determining how likely
events, tree diagrams. easily find probabilities under observed data would have
certain modelling conditions, happened ‘by chance’, and
e.g. binomial distribution. making subsequent deductions.
This Chapter Overview

1 :: General Probability Distributions 2 :: Binomial Distribution

“Given that , find the value of .” “I toss an unfair coin, with probability
heads of 0.6, 10 times. What’s the
probability I see 5 heads?”

3 :: Cumulative Binomial Probabilities

“I toss an unfair coin, with probability
heads of 0.6, 10 times. What’s the
probability I see at most 3 heads?” Changes since the old ‘S1’ syllabus:
You are no longer required to find the
expected value () or variance of a
random variable, or find the cumulative
distribution function of a probability
mass function.
The Binomial distribution has been
moved from S2 to this module.
Probability distributions
You are already familiar with the concept of variable in statistics: a collection of
values (e.g. favourite colour of students in the room):

red green blue orange

0.3 0.4 0.1 0.2

If each is assigned a probability of occurring, it becomes a random variable.

! A random variable represents a single experiment/trial. It

consists of outcomes with a probability for each.

i.e. is a random variable (capital

𝑃 ( 𝑋 = 𝑥) letter), but is a particular outcome.

“The probability that… …the outcome of the …was the specific

random variable … outcome ”

A shorthand for is ! (note the lowercase ).

It’s like saying “the probability that the outcome of my coin throw was heads” ()
vs “the probability of heads” (). In the latter the coin throw was implicit, so we
can skip the ‘.
Probability Distributions vs Probability Functions
There are two ways to write the mapping from outcomes to probabilities:

The “{“ means we have a ‘piecewise function’.

This just simply means we choose the
function from a list depending on the input.
As a function:

{
e.g. if , then the
𝑝 ( 𝑥 ) = 0.1 𝑥 , 𝑥 =1,2,3,4 probability is
¿ 0 , 𝑜𝑡h𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒
Advantages of functional form:
Can have a rule/expression based on the outcome.

As a table:
?
Particularly for continuous random variables (in Yr2), it
would be impossible to list the probability for every
outcome. More compact.
1 2 3 4
0.1 0.2 ?0.3 0.4
The table form that you know and love.

Advantages of table form:

Probability for each outcome more explicit.
?
Example
The random variable represents the number of heads when three
coins are tossed.

Underlying Distribution as a Table

Sample Space Num heads 0 1 2 3

{ HHH, ?
HHT,
HTT, Distribution as a Function
HTH,
THH, ?
THT,
TTH, ?
TTT }
Example Exam Question
(Hint: Use your knowledge
that )
Edexcel S1 May 2012

? ? ? ?
Since ,
?
Probability of a Range

Determine:

?
?
?
A few last things…
We can also represent a 𝑓 ( 𝑥)
probability distribution
𝑝 (𝑥 ) graphically:

1
6

Height
10 20 30 40 50 (cm)
𝑥 We can also have probability distributions for continuous
1 2 3 4 5 6 variables, e.g. height.
However, the probability that something has a height of say
! The throw of a die is an example of a exactly 30cm, is infinitely small (effectively 0).
discrete uniform distribution because the (written ) for continuous random variables is known as a
probability of each outcome is the same. probability density function. wouldn’t give us the
probability of being 30cm tall, but the amount of probability
per unit height, i.e. the density. This is similar to histograms
for discrete random variables is known as a where frequency density is the “frequency per unit value”.
probability mass function, because the Just as an area in a histogram would then give a frequency,
probability of each outcome represents an and area under a probability density graph would give a
actual ‘amount’ (i.e. mass) of probability. probability (mass).

You will encounter the Normal Distribution in Year 2, which

is an example of a continuous probability distribution.
Exercise 6A
Pearson Applied Year 1/AS
Pages 86-88
 Frost True Stories
Back in 2010 I was on holiday in Hawaii and visited the family of a friend. We noticed that
at the dinner table that out of the 8 of us, 6 of us were left-handed (including myself).
One of them commented, “The chances of that must be very low”.
“CHALLENGE ACCEPTED”.
Leftie Example
Let’s simplify the problem by using just 3 people:
The probability a randomly chosen person is
left-handed is 0.1. If there is a group of 3 d Again, listing the possibilities:
people, what is the probability that: LLR:
a) All 3 are left-handed. RLL:
b) 0 are left-handed. LRL: ?
c) 1 person is left-handed.
d) 2 people are left-handed.

a 0.13 =0.001
?
Let’s try to generalise!
b ? 3
0.9 =0.729 If there were ‘lefties’ out of 3, then we can
see, using the examples, that the probability of
c As we would do at GCSE, we a single matching outcome is .
could list the possibilities than How many rows did we have each time? In a
find the probability of each sequence of three L’s and R’s, there are “3
before adding: choose ”, i.e. ways of choosing of the 3 letters
? to be L’s. Therefore the probability of out of 3
people being left handed is:
LRR:
RLR:
RRL:
The Binomial Distribution
! You can model a random variable with a binomial distribution if
• there are a fixed number of trials, , In our example,
• there are two possible outcomes: ‘success’ and ‘failure’, ‘success’ was ‘leftie’.
• there is a fixed probability of success,
• the trials are independent of each other
is the number of
If then: successes out of .

“” means “has the

distribution”

On a table of 8 people, 6 people are left handed.

a) Suggest a suitable model for a random variable : the number of left-handed people in
a group of 8, where the probability of being left-handed is 0.1.
b) Find the probability 6 people are left handed.
c) Suggest why the chosen model may not have been appropriate.
a ? In general, choosing a well-known
b
?
In using a Binomial distribution, we assumed that each
model, such as a Binomial distribution,
makes certain simplifying
c person being left handed is independent of each other. assumptions. Such assumptions
simplifies the maths involved, but
?
However, left-handedness is partially genetic and many
people on the table were from the same family. potentially at the expense of not
adequately modelling the situation.
Further Examples
The random variable . Find:
a)
b)
c)

( )( ) ( )
2 10
1 5
a Fro Mental Tip: The two

12
? powers add up to .

𝑃 ( 𝑋=2)= =0.296
b
?
Fro Tip: Remember the

26 6
c two ‘edge cases’:
?

Edexcel S2 June 2010 Q6

A company claims that a quarter of the bolts sent to them are
faulty. To test this claim the number of faulty bolts in a random
sample of 50 is recorded. ?
(a) Give two reasons why a binomial distribution may be a
suitable model for the number of faulty bolts in the sample. (2)
Test Your Understanding
1
What is ?

What is ?
?

?
I have a bag of 2 red and 8 white balls. represents the number of
red balls I chose after 5 selections (with replacement).

How is distributed?
2
Determine the probability that I chose 3 red balls.
a
?
b
?
Exercise 6B
Pearson Pearson Applied Year 1/AS
Pages 90-91
Cumulative Probabilities
Often we wish to find the probability of a range of values.
For a Binomial distribution, this was relatively easy if the range was narrow, e.g. ,
but would be much more computationally expensive if we wanted say .

If , find .
How to calculate on your ClassWiz: Using tables (e.g. Page 204 of textbook)
Press Menu then ‘Distributions’. Look up and the column .
Choose “Binomial CD” (the C stands for Then look up the row .
‘Cumulative’). The value should be 0.9894.
Choose ‘Variable’.

Pressing = gives the desired value. Important Note: The tables only
have limited values of . You may
have to use your calculator.
You will need to use your calculator
in the exam anyway.
Cumulative Probabilities
The random variable . Find:
Look up
? Note that the table requires
?
? To get this right, just say in your head
“What’s the opposite of ‘at least 15’?”.
Given that Hopefully you can see it’s ‘at most 14’.

?
? can be 7 to 10. So we want up to 10,

? with everything up to 6 excluded.

Quickfire Questions

Write the following in terms of cumulative probabilities, e.g.

? ?
? ?
? “at least 30” ?
?
“greater than 30” ?
?
More Challenging Example
An awkward Tiffin boy ventures into Tiffin Girls. He asks 20 girls out on the date. The
probability that each girl says yes is 0.3.
Determine the probability that he will end up with:
a) Less than 6 girls on his next date.
b) At least 9 girls on his next date.
Q
The boy considers the evening a success if he dated at least 9 girls that evening.
He repeats this process across 5 evenings.
c) Calculate the probability that he had at least 4 successful evenings.
(Note: You won’t be able to use your table for (c) as is not a nice round number – calculate prob directly)

a is the number of girls dated in an evening.

?
b
?
is the number of successful evenings.

c
This is an interesting problem because
? the probability from a Binomial
distribution is then used as the of a
second separate Binomial distribution.
Dealing with Probability Ranges
A spinner is designed so that probability it lands on red is 0.3. Jane has 12 spins.
a) Find the probability that Jane obtains at least 5 reds.
Jane decides to use this spinner for a class competition. She wants the probability of
Q
winning a prize to be . Each member of the class will have 12 spins and the number of
reds will be recorded.
b) Find how many reds are needed to win the prize.

STEP 1: Represent the

sentence using
probability.

STEP 2: Ensure LHS involves inside

probability.

? STEP 3: Rearrange.

Note that the textbook does this in a less methodicalSTEP

way: buttable
4: Use the backwards
method to above is
find value
what you would find in S2 exam mark schemes, so ignore at yourtoperil.
corresponding closest probability.
Test Your Understanding
At Camford University, students have 20 exams at the end of the year. All students
pass each individual exam with probability 0.45. Students are only allowed to continue
Q into the next year if they pass some minimum of exams out of the 20.
What do the university administrators set this minimum number such that the
probability of continuing to next year is at least 90%?

𝑋 𝐵 ( 20,0.45 ) ?
This is exactly what
you should write.
Exercise 6C
Pearson Pearson Applied Year 1/AS
Pages 93-94