PRACTICE SHEET- 1

Quantitative Finance Cohort’24

Guidelines:

• Please note down the concept used in each question. If it is based on a pattern, mention
it. Noting down the pattern-based question will help you revise.
• All the questions are based on basics only. So, you may expect to solve them. Slight use for
Internet and books for reference is advised/needed.
• If you are unable to solve any question, facing any difficulty or want to match the answer,
do not hesitate to post your query in #doubts at the workspace.
• Submission Deadline: - 27th May 2024, 11:59 PM IST
1. What is the expected number of times should we throw a coin to get 6 consecutive
heads?
2. What is the expected number of times you should flip a deck of 52 cards to get the first
ace?
3. On a given busy intersection, the probability of at least one car crash in a 1-hour time
interval is 8/9. Assuming that car crashes occur independently of one another and at a
constant rate throughout time, find the probability of at least one car crash in a 30-
minute interval.
4. What is the probability you draw two cards of the same color from a standard 52-card
deck?

5. There are 5 balls, 3 red, and 2 black. What is the probability that a random ordering of
the 5 balls does not have the 2 black balls next to each other?
6. If you have 18 blue socks and 14 black socks in a drawer, in the dark, how many do
you have to pull out before you have a matching pair?
7. 2020 people stand in a circle and are numbered from 1 to 2020. Person 1 is skipped and
Person 2 is sent out of the circle. Person 3 is skipped and Person 4 is sent out of the
circle. If this process repeats until only one person is left in the circle, what number
Person will that be?
Quantitative Finance Cohort’24
Kshitij Anand
Quantij
 8. Let there be a 20% chance of rain on any day. If the meteorologist forecasts rain, there
is a 30% chance of rain. He uses yesterday's weather to consider forecasting rain. If
there was rain, he uses a fair coin toss to decide whether to forecast rain again. What is
the probability the meteorologist makes a correct forecast for rain?
9. We play a game: I pick a number n from 1 to 100. If you guess correctly, I pay you $n
and zero otherwise. How much would you pay to play this game?
10. Suppose you have a fair coin. You start with a dollar, and if you toss a H, your position
doubles, if you toss a T, your position halves. What is the expected value of the money
you have if you toss the coin infinitely?
11. We play a game, with a fair coin. The game stops when either two heads (H) or tails (T)
appear consecutively. What is the expected time until the game stops?
12. There are 100 light bulbs lined up in a row in a long room. Each bulb has its own switch
and is currently switched off. The room has an entry door and an exit door. There are
100 stockbrokers lined up outside the entry door. Each bulb is numbered consecutively
from 1 to 100. Each stockbroker is numbered consecutively from 1 to 100. Broker
number 1 enters the room, switches on every bulb, and exits. Broker number 2 enters
and flips the switch on every second bulb (turn- ing off bulbs 2, 4, 6, ...). Broker number
3 enters and flips the switch on every third bulb (changing the state on bulbs 3, 6, 9, ...).
This continues until all 100 brokers have passed through the room. What is the final
state of bulb number 64? Is it illuminated or dark?
13. Suppose you had eight identical balls. One of them is slightly heavier and you are given
a balance scale . What's the fewest number of times you have to use the scale to find
the heavier ball?
14. Suppose you are offered to play a game where you flip a fair coin until you obtain a
heads for the first time. If the first heads occurs on the nth flip, you are paid out $2^n.
What is the fair value of this game?
15. There are three ants each on their own side of an equilateral triangle. Each picks one
adjacent vertex to move to with equal probability. What is the probability that no two
ants will intersect at a corner?
16. Calculate the probability that when we roll 4 fair 6−sided dice, the sum of their upfaces
is 20.
Quantitative Finance Cohort’24
Kshitij Anand
Quantij
 17. Andrew and Beth are playing a game of tennis. Tennis scoring works off these rules:
1. Scoring starts at 0-0 and when someone wins a point, their score goes up by 11 (thus
either 1-0 or 0-1). 2. If a player gets 44 points before the other player, they win
unless the score was 3-3 (deuce). If the score was 3-3, a player has to win by two points
to win the game. How many ways are there to get to a score of 4-4?
18. An urn containing 22 red and 11 blue orb is in front of you. At each step, you will take
out an orb uniformly at random and replace it with a blue orb, regardless of the color
selected. Find the expected number of draws needed until the urn only contains blue
orbs.
19. There are two shelves, the top and bottom. The top shelf contains red socks with
probability 0.4 and black socks with probability 0.6. The bottom shelf contains red
socks with probability 0.7 and black socks with probability 0.3. I pick a shelf randomly.
From that self, I picked 2 red socks. What is the probability that those 2 red socks come
from the top shelf? Assume you have so many socks that taking from either shelf does
not change the probability of future socks that are drawn.
20. A horizontal stick is one metre long. Fifty ants are placed in random positions on the
stick, pointing in random directions. The ants crawl head first along the stick, moving
at one metre per minute. If an ant reaches the end of the stick, it falls off. If two ants
meet, they both change direction. How long do you have to wait to be sure that all the
ants have fallen off the stick?
21. There are N lions and 1 sheep in a field. All the lions really want to eat the sheep, but
the problem is that if a lion eats a sheep, it becomes a sheep. A lion would rather stay a
lion than be eaten by another lion. There is no other way for a lion to die than to become
a sheep and then be eaten. When is it safe for any lion to eat?
22. You are given two unfair coins. You flip both of them and ones comes up heads 2/3 of
the time while the other comes up heads 1/3 of the time. Given you had a uniform prior
on the bias before flipping, what is the probability that the first coin is more biased than
the second coin?
23. You have 100 marbles, 50 are blue, 50 are red. You want to distribute them between
two drawers, in such a way that none is left outside and no drawer is left empty. After
distributing them you are going to select a drawer randomly and from that drawer you

Quantitative Finance Cohort’24

Kshitij Anand
Quantij
 are gonna remove one marble randomly. How do you distribute the marbles in such a
way that the probability of getting a red marble is maximized?
24. Unfair coin with P(H) = 1/3 and P(T) = 2/3. a) How to make an event with 50%
probability? b) Expected number of flips until a realization occurs? c) Can you create a
strategy to reduce the number of flips necessary? d) Can you create a strategy to reduce
the number of flips necessary for an unfair coin with any bias?
25. If you're flipping a fair coin, what is probability you'll see HTH before TTH? Expected
number of flips to see each?
26. Two bankers each arrive at the station at some random time between 5:00 am and 6:00
am (arrival time for either banker is uniformly distributed). They stay exactly five
minutes and then leave. What is the probability they will meet on a given day?
27. Fifty-two cards are randomly distributed to 4 players with each player getting 13 cards.
What is the probability that each of them will have an ace?
28. We throw 3 dice one by one. What is the probability that we obtain 3 points in strictly
increasing order?
29. You are given 1000 coins. Among them, 1 coin has heads on both sides. The other 999
coins are fair coins. You randomly choose a coin and toss it 10 times. Each time, the
coin turns up heads. What is the probability that the coin you choose is the unfair one?
30. A company is holding a dinner for working mothers with at least one son. Ms. Jackson,
a mother with two children, is invited. What is the probability that both children are
boys?
31. Your new colleague, Ms. Parker is known to have two children. If you see her walking
with one of her children and that child is a boy, what is the probability that both children
are boys?
32. How many people do we need in a class to make the probability that two people have
the same birthday more than 1/2?

Quantitative Finance Cohort’24

Kshitij Anand
Quantij