Introduction

In probability and statistics, a probability distribution assigns a probability to each

measurable subset of the possible outcomes of a random experiment, survey or procedure of
statistical inference. The numerical values that a variable takes are the outcomes of some
random phenomenon. All probability distributions can be classified as discrete probability
distributions or as continuous probability distributions, depending on whether they define
probabilities associated with discrete or continuous variables. If a variable can take on any
value between two specified values, it is called a continuous variable. Otherwise, it is called a
discrete variable.
The Binomial distribution is the most fundamental distribution in probability theory.
Binomial (n,p) models the number of successes in n trials, where each trial is independent of
others and has the same probability of success p. The probability of failure (1-p) is often
written as q to make the equations a bit neater. The Binomial distribution can be
approximated using Poisson distribution and normal distribution depending on the situation.
For Poisson approximation to the Binomial distribution, the approximation would be
adequate when the number of trials n is extremely large while probability of success p is very
small, but within the constraint that np remains finite.
When the success probability p is not too close to 0 or 1 and the number of trials n is
sufficiently large, binomial distributions can be approximated using normal distributions. If
X~B(n,p), it is convenient to use the criteria np 5 and nq 5 for the binomial distribution to
be reasonably approximated by a normal distribution with mean np and variance npq.
However, a continuity correction is needed whenever a discrete distribution (binomial) is
approximated by a continuous distribution (normal).
Therefore, this assignment is conducted in order to study how the change in the value
of n and p would affect the accuracy and appropriation of using the Poisson distribution and
normal distribution as an approximation to the Binomial distribution.