NCERT Solutions Class 12 Maths Chapter 13

Miscellaneous Exercise

Question 1:

A and B are two events such that , find , if

(i) A is a subset of B (ii) .

Solution:
Given,
(i) A is a subset of B.

Question 2:
A couple has two children,
(i) Find the probability that both children are males, if it is known that at least one of the
children is male.
(ii) Find the probability that both children are females, if it is known that the elder child is a
female.

Solution:
If a couple has two children, then the sample space is

(i) Let E and F respectively denote the events that both children are male and atleast one
children is a male.
(ii) Let C and D respectively denote the events that both children are females and the elder
child is a female.

Question 3:
Suppose that 5% of men and 0.25% of women have grey hair. A haired person is selected at
random. What is the probability of this person being male?
Assume that there are equal numbers of males and females.

Solution:
Given, 5% of men and 0.25% of women have grey hair.
Thus, percentage of people with grey hair

Probability that the selected haired person is a male

Question 4:
Suppose that 90% of people are right-handed. What is the probability that at most 6 of a random
sample of 10 people are right-handed?

Solution:
A person can be either right-handed or left-handed.

Given, 90% of the people are right-handed.

Using binominal distribution, the probability that more than 6 people are right-handed is given
by

Therefore, the probability that at most 6 people are right-handed

Question 5:
An urn contains 25 balls of which 10 balls bear a mark ‘X’ and the remaining 15 bear a mark
‘Y’.A ball is drawn at random from the urn, its mark is noted down, and it is replaced. If 6
balls are drawn in this way, find the probability that
(i) all will bear ‘X’ mark.
(ii) not more than 2 will bear ‘Y’ mark.
(iii) at least one ball will bear ‘Y’ mark.
(iv) the number of balls with ‘X’ mark and ‘Y’ mark will be equal.

Solution:
Total number of balls in the urn
Balls bearing mark ‘X’
Balls bearing mark ‘Y’

Let Z be the random variable that represents the number of balls with ‘Y’ mark on them in the
trials.

Clearly, Z has a binomial distribution with .

(i)
(ii)

(iii)

(iv)

Question 6:
In a hurdle race, a player has to cross 10 hurdles. The probability that he will clear each hurdle

is . What is the probability that he will knock down fewer than 2 hurdles?

Solution:
Let p and q respectively be the probability that the player will clear and knock down the hurdle.
Let X be the random variable that represents the number of times the player will knock down
the hurdle.

Thus, by binomial distribution, we get

Question 7:
A die is thrown again and again until three sixes are obtained. Find the probability of obtaining
the third six in the sixth throw of the die.

Solution:

The probability of getting a six in a throw of die is and not getting a six is .

Let

The probability that the 2 sixes come in the first five throws of the die is

Probability that third six comes in the sixth throw

Question 8:
If a leap year is selected at random, what is the change that it will contain 53 Tuesdays?

Solution:
In a leap year, there are 366 days i.e., 52 weeks and 2 days.

In 52 weeks, there are 52 Tuesdays.

Therefore, the probability that the leap year will contain 53 Tuesdays is equal to the probability
that the remaining 2 days will be Tuesdays.

The remaining 2 days can be any of the following:

Monday and Tuesday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Thursday and
Friday, Friday and Saturday, Saturday and Sunday and Sunday and Monday.

Total number of cases

Favourable cases

Probability that a leap year will have 53 Tuesdays

Question 9:
An experiment succeeds twice as often as it fails. Find the probability that in the next six trials,
there will be at least 4 successes.

Solution:
Given, the probability of success is twice the probability of failure.
Let the probability of failure be x.
Probability of success
Let and
Let X be the random variable that represents the number of successes in six trials.

By binomial distribution, we obtain

Question 10:
How many times must a man toss a fair coin so that the probability of having at least one head
is more than 90%?

Solution:
Let the man toss the coin n times. The n tosses are n Bernoulli trials.

Probability of getting a head at the toss of a coin is

The minimum value of n that satisfies the given inequality is 4.

Thus, the man should toss the coin 4 or more than 4 times.

Question 11:
In a game, a man wins a rupee for a six and loss a rupee for any other number when a fair die
is thrown. The man decided to throw a die thrice but to quit as and when he gets a six. Find the
expected value of the amount he wins/loses.

Solution:

Here, the probability of getting a six is and the probability of not getting a 6 is .
Three cases can occur.

(a) If he gets a six in the first throw, then the required probability is
Amount he will receive .

(b) If he does not get a six in the first throw and gets a six in the second throw, then

probability
Amount he will receive

(c) If he does not get a six in the first two throws and gets a six in the third throw, then

probability
Probability that he does not get a six in any of the three throws

Expected value he can win

Question 12:
Suppose we have four boxes. A, B, C and D containing coloured marbles as given below.

Box Marble Colour

Red White Black
A 1 6 3
B 6 2 2
C 8 1 1
D 0 6 4

One of the boxes has been selected at random and a single marble is drawn from it. If the
marble is red, what is the probability that it was drawn from box A?, box B?, box C?

Solution:
Let R be the event of drawing the red marble.

Let respectively denote the events of selecting the box A, B, and C.

Total number of marbles = 40

Number of red marbles = 15

Probability of drawing the red marble from box A is given by .

Probability that the red marble is from box B is .

Probability that the red marble is from box C is .

Question 13:
Assume that the changes of the patient having a heart attack are 40%. It is also assumed that a
meditation and yoga course reduce the risk of heart attack by 30% and prescription of certain
drug reduces its changes by 25%. At a time a patient can choose any one of the two options
with equal probabilities. It is given that after going through one of the two options the patient
selected at random suffers a heart attack. Find the probability that the patient followed a course
of meditation and yoga?

Solution:
Let respectively denote the events that a person has a heart attack, the selected
person followed the course of yoga and meditation, and the person adopted the drug
prescription.

Probability that the patient suffering a heart attack followed a course of meditation and yoga
is given by .
Question 14:
If each element of a second order determinant is either zero or one, what is the probability that
the value of the determinant is positive? (Assume that the individual entries of the determinant

are chosen independently, each value being assumed with probability ).

Solution:

The total number of determinants of second order with each element being 0 or 1 is .

The value of determinant is positive in the following cases.

Therefore, Required probability

Question 15:
An electronic assembly consists of two subsystems, say, A and B. From previous testing
procedures, the following probabilities are assumed to be known:

Evaluate the following probabilities

Solution:
Let the event in which A fails and B fails be denote by
Question 16:
Bag I contains 3 red and 4 black balls and Bag II contains 4 red and 5 black balls. One ball is
transferred from Bag I to Bag II and then a ball is drawn from Bag II. The ball so drawn is
found to be red in colour. Find the probability that the transferred ball is black.

Solution:
Let respectively denote the event that a red ball is transferred from bag I to II and a
black ball is transferred from bag I to II.

Let A be the event that the ball drawn is red.

When a red ball is transferred from bag I to II,

When a black ball is transferred from bag I to II,

Question 17:
If A and B are two events such that P (A) ≠ 0 and P (B|A) = 1, then

Solution:

Given, .
Thus, the correct answer is A.

Question 18:

If and , then which of the following is correct:

Solution:

Given,

Thus, the correct answer is C.

Question 19:
If A and B are any two events such that , then

Solution:
Given,
Thus, the correct answer is B.