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June 2008 p6 q6
2951
Every day Eduardo tries to phone his friend. Every time he phones there is a 50% chance that his friend will answer. If his friend answers, Eduardo does not phone again on that day. If his friend does not answer, Eduardo tries again in a few minutes’ time. If his friend has not answered after 4 attempts, Eduardo does not try again on that day.
(i) Draw a tree diagram to illustrate this situation.
(ii) Let \(X\) be the number of unanswered phone calls made by Eduardo on a day. Copy and complete the table showing the probability distribution of \(X\).
\(x\)
0
1
2
3
4
\(P(X = x)\)
\(\frac{1}{4}\)
(iii) Calculate the expected number of unanswered phone calls on a day.
Solution
(i) The tree diagram should have branches for each call attempt with probabilities 0.5 for Answered (A) and 0.5 for Unanswered (U). There should be 4 levels of branches, representing up to 4 attempts.
(ii) The probability distribution table is completed as follows:
\(x\)
0
1
2
3
4
\(P(X = x)\)
\(\frac{1}{2}\)
\(\frac{1}{4}\)
\(\frac{1}{8}\)
\(\frac{1}{16}\)
\(\frac{1}{16}\)
(iii) The expected number of unanswered calls \(E(X)\) is calculated as: