It is known that 8% of the population of a large city use a particular web browser called Voyager. A researcher wishes to interview people from the city who use Voyager and selects people at random, one at a time.

  1. (i)

    Find the probability that the first person that he finds uses Voyager is the third person selected.

  2. (ii)

    A random sample of nn people is now selected.

    State two conditions needed for the number of people in the sample who use Voyager to be well modelled by binomial distribution.

  3. (iii)

    Given that n=80n = 80, use a suitable approximation to find the probability that, fewer than 10 people use Voyager.

  4. (iv)

    Find the least value of nn such that the probability of at least 10 people use Voyager is more than 0.2.

Work through it with AI →

It won't just hand you the answer — it asks where you're stuck.How the checker works

Worked solution

8(i)

1. Find the probability of a randomly selected person not using Voyager.

P(does not use Voyager)=1−0.08=0.92\mathrm{P}(\text{does not use Voyager}) = 1 - 0.08 = 0.92

2. Calculate the probability that the first two people do not use Voyager and the third person does.

Required probability=0.92×0.92×0.08\text{Required probability} = 0.92 \times 0.92 \times 0.08
=0.067712= 0.067712
≈0.0677 (to 3 s.f.)\approx 0.0677 \text{ (to 3 s.f.)}

Answer

0.06770.0677

8(ii)

1. State the first condition in the context of the question (Independence).

Whether a person uses Voyager is independent of whether any other person uses Voyager.

2. State the second condition in the context of the question (Constant probability).

The probability that a randomly selected person uses Voyager is constant.

Answer
  1. Whether a person uses Voyager is independent of whether any other person uses Voyager.
  2. The probability that a randomly selected person uses Voyager is constant.

8(iii)

1. Define the random variable and calculate the mean and variance of the binomial distribution.

Let XX be the number of people out of 8080 who use Voyager.
X∼B(80,0.08)X \sim \text{B}(80, 0.08)
E(X)=np=80×0.08=6.4\text{E}(X) = np = 80 \times 0.08 = 6.4
Var(X)=np(1−p)=6.4×0.92=5.888\text{Var}(X) = np(1-p) = 6.4 \times 0.92 = 5.888

2. State the suitable normal approximation distribution.

Since np=6.4>5np = 6.4 > 5 and n(1−p)=73.6>5n(1-p) = 73.6 > 5, the binomial distribution can be suitably approximated by a normal distribution:
X∼N(6.4,5.888)X \sim \text{N}(6.4, 5.888) approximately.

3. Apply continuity correction and calculate the required probability.

We need the probability that fewer than 1010 people use Voyager, which is P(X<10)P(X < 10) or P(X≤9)P(X \le 9).
Since we are using a continuous distribution to approximate a discrete one, we apply a continuity correction:
P(X≤9)≈P(Xnorm≤9.5)P(X \le 9) \approx P(X_{\text{norm}} \le 9.5)

Using a graphing calculator with μ=6.4\mu = 6.4 and σ=5.888\sigma = \sqrt{5.888}:
P(Xnorm≤9.5)≈0.89928P(X_{\text{norm}} \le 9.5) \approx 0.89928
≈0.899 (to 3 s.f.)\approx 0.899 \text{ (to 3 s.f.)}

Answer

0.8990.899

8(iv)

1. Define the random variable and set up the probability inequality.

Let XX be the number of people out of a sample of nn who use Voyager.
X∼B(n,0.08)X \sim \mathrm{B}(n, 0.08)
We require the probability that at least 1010 people use Voyager to be more than 0.20.2:
P(X≥10)>0.2\mathrm{P}(X \ge 10) > 0.2

2. Rewrite the inequality in terms of cumulative probabilities suitable for a graphing calculator.

1−P(X≤9)>0.21 - \mathrm{P}(X \le 9) > 0.2
P(X≤9)<0.8\mathrm{P}(X \le 9) < 0.8

3. Use the table function on a graphing calculator to find the least value of $n$.

Using the graphing calculator to generate a table of values for P(X≤9)\mathrm{P}(X \le 9) given different integer values of nn:
When n=92n = 92, P(X≤9)≈0.8013>0.8\mathrm{P}(X \le 9) \approx 0.8013 > 0.8
When n=93n = 93, P(X≤9)≈0.7930<0.8\mathrm{P}(X \le 9) \approx 0.7930 < 0.8

Therefore, the least value of nn is 9393.

Answer

9393

AI analysis — may contain mistakes.

Worked this one out on paper? Snap your steps and Gigle's AI math checker will circle the step where it went wrong.

More questions on this topic

  1. 1An amateur music composer is arranging a sequence of four musical notes followed by three beats. There are 7 possible no…
  2. 2Two brothers Kai and Leo are duathlon (running and cycling) athletes who train regularly. For each day, the probability…
  3. 3Colour Vision Deficiency is the decreased ability to see differences in colours. Someone with normal colour vision will…
  4. 4A pair of siblings, Abbey and Betty, went to a book fair with six other friends. The eight of them stood in a queue in r…
  5. 5A particular disease is known to infect approximately 1 in every 10 000 people. A test for this disease is 99.9% accurat…