Answers to Sections 11 and 12 of Marcel B. Finan's "A Probability Course for the Actuaries"

These answer keys are meant to assist students using Marcel B. Finan's A Probability Course for the Actuaries. With Dr. Finan's permission, Mr. Stolyarov wrote solutions for the problems in his study guide and is endeavoring to make the answer keys to each section publicly available. You can see his full List of Answer Keys here. Do the problems at the end of each section and then check your answers with these keys.

Dr. Finan's study guide is an excellent resource for those preparing to take Actuarial Exam 1/P on probability.

Problems that require numerical answers are answered here, but it is still the responsibility of the student to provide his or her own work for these problems. These answers are meant to enable students to independently verify the correctness of their reasoning by checking to see if the end result they obtained is correct. Questions from the study guide that require proofs or diagrams are not addressed here, as the end result of those questions is known in advance, and it is the responsibility of the student to provide the procedure for getting there.

Section 11.

Answer 11.1a. Dependent

Answer 11.1b. Independent

Answer 11.2. 1/49= about 0.02041

Answer 11.3a. 36/169= about 0.21302

Answer 11.3b. 48/221= about 0.21719

Answer 11.4. 0.72

Answer 11.5. 4

Answer 11.6. about 0.32872

Answer 11.7. 1/10= 0.1

Answer 11.9. P(C)=0.56; P(D)= 0.38

Answer 11.10. 0.93

Answer 11.11. 0.43

Answer 11.13a. The sample space is the set of all possible outcomes. Let N denote the nickel, D denote the dime, and Q denote the quarter. Let H denote heads and T denote tails. We will express "the dime came up heads" as "DH."

S= {(NH, DH, QH), (NH, DH, QT), (NH, DT, QH), (NH, DT, QT), (NT, DH, QH),

(NT, DH, QT), (NT, DT, QH), (NT, DT, QT)}

A={(NH, DH, QH), (NH, DH, QT), (NH, DT, QH), (NT, DH, QH), (NT, DT, QH)}

B= {(NH, DH, QH), (NH, DT, QH), (NT, DH, QH), (NT, DT, QH)}

C= {(NH, DH, QH), (NH, DT, QH), (NT, DH, QT), (NT, DT, QT)}

Answer 11.13b. P(A)= 5/8, P(B)= ½, P(C)= ½.

Answer 11.13c. 0.8 = 4/5

Answer 11.13d. Since P(B and C)= P(B)*P(C)= ¼, B and C are independent.

Answer 11.14. 0.65= 13/20

Answer 11.15a. 0.70

Answer 11.15b. 0.06

Answer 11.15c. 0.24

Answer 11.15d. 0.72

Answer 11.15e. 0.4615

Section 12.

Answer 12.1. 15:1

Answer 12.2. 5/8= 0.625

Answer 12.3. 1:1

Answer 12.4. 4:6

Answer 12.5. 1/27=about 0.03704

Answer 12.6a. 1:5

Answer 12.6b. 1:1

Answer 12.6c. 1:0

Answer 12.6d. 0:1

Answer 12.7. 1:3

Answer 12.8a. 3/7= about 0.42857

Answer 12.8b. 3/10= 0.3

Answer 12.9. 2/3

See a list of all the answer keys to Dr. Finan's study guide for Exam 1/P here.