There are two independent multiple-choice quizzes where quiz 1 has eight questions and quiz 2 has 15 questions. Each question in the first quiz has four choices and each question in the second quiz has five choices. Suppose a student answers the questions in the quizzes by pure guessing. i. What is the probability that at most three questions must be answered to obtain the first correct answer in quiz 1? Interpret its value. ii. What is the probability that less than four correct answers in quiz 2? iii. In order to get high score, Siti needs to obtain at least six correct answers in quiz 1. Is Siti likely to get the high score in quiz 1? iv. What is the probability that obtains five correct answers before eighth questions in quiz 2? Interpret its value. v. Based on your answer in (iv), would you consider this event likely to occur? Explain your reason.
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i. All the possible answers in Quiz 1 by chance can be represented by the terms in the expansion of (0.25+0.75)^8, where 0.25 is the probability of a correct choice of answer for each individual question and 0.75 is the probability of an incorrect choice of answer. The binomial expression has a value of 1, which is a probability of 1, i.e., certainty, made up of the sum of all the terms. Let p=0.25 and 1-p is 0.75. The expansion is p^8+... + 8Cr*p^r(1-p)^(8-r), where r indicates the rth term between r=0 and 8 and 8Cr is the combination function nCr for n=8. The value of 8Cr is given by (8*7*...*(8-r+1))/(1*2*...*r). The coefficients are, in order: 1, 8, 28, 56, 70, 56, 28, 8, 1, the 8th row of Pascal's triangle. The binomial terms start with the probability of 8 correct answers, then 7 correct 1 incorrect, 6 correct 2 incorrect, 5 correct 3 incorrect, and so on.

The probability of answering incorrectly 3 question is (3/4)^3=27/64, so the probability of answering at least one question in 3 correctly by chance is 1-27/64=37/64, in other words, this is the probability that at most 3 questions are attempted before obtaining a correct answer. This is better than an evens chance (50%), so is more likely than unlikely.

ii. In Quiz 2 p=1/5 or 0.20 and n=15. The probability of less than 4 correct answers is the sum of the last four terms of the binomial series for 15, which give all incorrect, 1, 2, 3 correct. The coefficients are respectively 1, 15, 105, 455. The p terms alone are 0.03518, 008796, 0.002199 and 0.0005498. When we multiply by the coefficients and add the terms together we get 0.6482 or 64.82% probability.

iii. The probability of 6 or more correct answers in Quiz 1 is 1-(probability of up to 2 incorrect answers)=1-(0.75^8+8*0.75^7*0.25+28*0.75^6*0.25^2)=1-0.6785=0.3215 or 32.15%. This is less than 1/3, so the odds are 2:1 against Siti getting 6 or more correct answers by chance alone, which makes it reasonably unlikely.

iv and v. The problem says "before the 8th question", so there need to be 5 correct answers within the first 7 questions. Using p=0.2, the probability of getting 5 correct answers out of 5 is 0.2^5=0.00032; the probability of getting 5 correct out of 6 is 6*0.2^5*0.8=0.001536; and the probability of 5 out of 7 is 21*0.2^5*0.8^2=0.0043008. Therefore the probability of getting 5 correct before the 8th question is the sum of these=0.0061568 or 0.62%, a most unlikely occurrence, less than 1 in 162.

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