1. A box contains four coins: two fair coins, a two-headed coin and a coin
which shows up heads with probability 1/11. We randomly select one of the coins
and toss it. Given that it shows up heads find the probability that it is not a fair coin.
Solution: By Bayes’ formula
1/4 · 1 + 1/4 · 1/11 12
P = = .
1/4 · 1/2 + 1/4 · 1/2 + 1/4 · 1 + 1/4 · 1/11 23
2. A box contains 2 white and 3 red balls. We draw balls from the box one-by-one
without replacement. Let X be the total number of trials until the total number of
obtained red balls exceeds the total number of obtained white balls. Find V arX.
Solution: R(X) = {1, 3, 5}. fX (1) = 3/5, fX (3) = 2/5 · 3/4 · 2/3 = 1/5 and
fX (5) = 2/5 · 1/4 · 3/3 · 2/2 · 1/1 + 2/5 · 3/4 · 1/3 · 2/2 · 1/1 = 1/5.
Therefore,
EX = 1 · 3/5 + 3 · 1/5 + 5 · 1/5 = 11/5,
EX 2 = 12 · 3/5 + 32 · 1/5 + 52 · 1/5 = 37/5
and
V arX = 37/5 − (11/5)2 = 64/25.
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