IBS – Quantitative Methods Probability- BAYES’ Theorm

In a typical problem in Probability, one is required to find the probability of the happening of an
event. However, in problems based on Bayes’ Theorem, an event is said to have happened and
one has to find the cause of happening of that event.

Let there be a event E which can happen only if one of the mutually exclusive events A, B, C
….has happened

.
Then =
∑ .

1. Assume that a factory has two machines.Past records show that the machine I produces 30% of
the items of output and machine II produces 70% of the items. Further 5% of the items
produced by machine I were defective and only 1% produced by machine 2 were defective. If a
defective item is drawn at random, what is the probability that the defective item was produced
by machine 1 or machine 2?
2. A company has two plants to manufacture scooters. Plant 1 manufactures 80% of the scooters
and plant II manufactures 20%. At plant I, 85 out of 100 scooters are rated standard quality or
better.
a. What is the probability that scooter selected at random came from plant I it it is known that the
scooter is of standard quality?
b. What is the probability that the scooter came from plant II if it is known that the scooter is of
standard quality?
3. In a factory manufacturing pens, machines X, Y and Z manufacture 30, 30 and 40 percent of
the total production of pens, respectively. Of their output 4,5,and 10 percent of the pens are
defective. If one pen is selected at random, and it is found to be defective, what is the
probability that it is manufactured by machine Z?
4. In a bolt factory, machine A, B and C manufacture A, B and C manufacture 25%, 35% and
40% of the total output respectively. Of the total of their outputs 5,4 and 2% are defective.
What is the probability that is the probability that it was manufactured by machines A, B or C
5. Suppose an item is manufactured by three machines X,Y and Z. All the three machines have
equal capacity and are operated at the same rate. It is known that the percentages of defective
items produced by X, Y and are 2, 7 and 12% respectively. All the items produced by X,Y and
Z are put in one bin. Rom this bin, one item is drawn at random and is found to be defective.
what is the probability that this item was produced on Y?
6. In a post office, three clerks are assigned to process incoming mail. The first clerk A, processes
40%, the second clerk B processes 35%, and the third clerk processes 25% of the mails. The
first clerk has an error rate of 0.04, the second has an error rate of 0.06 and the third has an
error rate of 0.03. A mail selected at random from a day’s output is found to hav an error. The
 postmaster wishes to know the probability that it was processed by clerk A or clerk B or Clerk
C.
7. A company uses a ‘selling aptitude test’ in the selection of salesman. Past experience has
shown that only 70% of all persons applying for a sales position achieved a classification
‘dissatisfactory’ in actual selling, whereas the remainder were classified as’satisfactory’, 85%
had scored a passing grade in the aptitude test. Only 25% of those classified dissatisfactory had
passed the test on the basis of this information. what is the probability that a candidate would
be a satisfactory salesman given that he passed the aptitude test?
8. In a basin area where oil is likely to be found underneath the surface, there are three locations
with three different types of earth composition, say C1,C2 an C3. The probabilities for these
three compositions are 0.5, 03 and 0.2 respectively. Further, it has been found from the past
experience that after drilling of well at these locations, the probabilities of finding oil is 0.2, 0.4
and 0.3 respectively. Suppose, a well is drilled at a location, and its yields oil, what is the
probability that the earth composition was C1?
9. A component is tested for its stipulated quality, but the test is not infalliable. If the component
is good. 70% of the time, test gives positive indication i.e 70% of the time the test classifies
good item as good. If the component is defective, 80% of the time, test givs negative indication
implying that the component is bad. If in the manufacturing process, the percentage of
defective component is 20. Calculate
a) Probability that the component is good and test gives positive indication
b) Probability that the component is not good and test gives negative indication
c) Probabiity that the component is good given that the test is positive

10.A restaurant is experiencing discontentment among its customers. The feedback revealed that
there are three factors responsible i.e food quality and interior décor. By conducting an analysis,
it asseses the probabilities of discontentment with the three factors as 0.4, 0.35 and 0.25
respectively. By conducting a survey among discontended customers. It also evaluates the
probabilities of a customer going away discontented on account of these factors as:0.6, 0.8 and
0.5 respectively. With this information, the resturant wants to know if a customer expresses
discontentment, what are the probabilities that it is so due to food, service or interior décor.