Answers to Sections 7 and 8 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 free 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 7.

Answer 7.1a. 0.78

Answer 7.1b. 0.57

Answer 7.1c. 0

Answer 7.2. 0.32

Answer 7.3. 4/13= about 0.30769

Answer 7.4. 5/9= about 0.55555556

Answer 7.6a. 2/11= about 0.1818181818

Answer 7.6b. 9/11= about 0.81818181818

Answer 7.6c. 6/11= about 0.54545454545

Answer 7.7. 8/9=about 0.888888888889

Answer 7.8. A and B cannot be mutually exclusive.

Answer 7.9. 0.52

Answer 7.10. 0.05

Answer 7.11. P(A)=0.60

Answer 7.12. P(T)= 0.48

Answer 7.13. 0.04= 1/25

Answer 7.14. 0.09= 9/100

Answer 7.15. 0.5 = ½

Section 8.

Answer 8.1. P(2 red balls)= 3/10 = 0.3

P(red ball, then blue ball)= 3/10 = 0.3

P(blue ball, then red ball)= 3/10 = 0.3

P(2 blue balls)= 1/10 = 0.1

Answer 8.2. P(2 red balls)= 9/25 = 0.36

P(red ball, then blue ball)= 6/25 = 0.24

P(blue ball, then red ball)= 6/25 = 0.24

P(2 blue balls)= 4/25 = 0.16

Answer 8.3. P(A)=3/5=0.6

P(B)=3/10=0.3

P(C)=1/10=0.1

Answer 8.4. 3/16=0.1875

Answer 8.5. 4/9= about 0.44444444

Answer 8.6. 1/6= about 0.16666666667

Answer 8.7. 3/5= 0.6

Answer 8.8. 12/25= 0.48

Answer 8.9. 8/57= about 0.1403508772