Course: Machine Learning - Foundations

Week 10 Questions

TEST QUESTIONS

1. (1 point) (Multiple Select) For three events, A, B, and C, with P (C) > 0, Which of
the following is/are correct?
A. P (Ac |C)= 1 - P (A|C)
B. P (φ|C) = 0
C. P (A|C) ≤ 1
D. if A ⊂ B then P (A|C) ≤ P (B|C)

Answer: A, B, C, D

2. (2 points) (Multiple Select) Let the random experiment be tossing an unbiased coin
two times. Let A be the event that the first toss results in a head, B be the event that
the second toss results in a tail and C be the event that on both the tosses, the coin
landed on the same side. Choose the correct statements from the following:
A. A and C are independent events.
B. A and B are independent events.
C. B and C are independent events.
D. A, B, and C are independent events.

Answer: A, B, C
Solution:

A = {HT, HH}
B = {HT, T T }
C = {T T, HH}
1
P (A) =
2
1
P (B) =
2
1
P (C) =
2
P (A ∩ B) = {HT }
P (C ∩ B) = {T T }
P (A ∩ C) = {HH}
Course: Machine Learning - Foundations Page 2 of 7
P (A ∩ B) = P (A) × P (B) Hence, option B is correct
P (A ∩ C) = P (A) × P (C) Hence, option A is correct
P (C ∩ B) = P (C) × P (B) Hence, option C is correct

3. (2 points) (Multiple Select) If A1 , A2 , A3 , , An are non empty disjoint sets and subsets
of sample space S, and a set An+1 is also a subset of S, then which of the following
statements are true?
A. The sets A1 ∩ An+1 , A2 ∩ An+1 , A3 ∩ An+1 , , An ∩ An+1 are disjoint.
B. If An+1 , An are disjoint then A1 , A2 , , An−1 are disjoint with An+1 .
C. The sets A1 , A2 , A3 , , An , φ are disjoint.
D. The sets A1 , A2 , A3 , , An , S are disjoint.

Answer: A, C

4. (3 points) A triangular spinner having three outcomes can lands on one of the numbers
0, 1 and 2 with probabilities shown in table.

Outcome 0 1 2
Probability 0.7 0.2 0.1

Table 1: Table 10.2: Probability distribution

The spinner is spun twice. The total of the numbers on which it lands is denoted by X.
The the probability distribution of X is.
x 2 3 4 5 6
A. 49 28 1 4 18
P (X = x)
100 100 100 100 100
x 2 3 4 5 6
B. 28 49 18 1 4
P (X = x)
100 100 100 100 100
x 0 1 2 3 4
C. 49 28 18 4 1
P (X = x)
100 100 100 100 100
x 2 3 4 5 6
D. 28 49 18 4 1
P (X = x)
100 100 100 100 100

Answer: C
Course: Machine Learning - Foundations Page 3 of 7
5. (1 point) When throwing a fair die, what is the variance of the number of throws needed
to get a 1?

Answer: 30
Solution:

1−p
= V ar(X) =
p2
1
1−
= 6
12
6
= 30

6. (1 point) Joint pmf of two random variables X and Y are given in Table

y
1 2 3 fX (x)
x
1 0.05 0 a1 0.15
2 0.1 0.2 a3 a2
3 a4 0.2 a5 0.45
fY (y) 0.3 0.4 a6

Find the value of fY |X=3 (1) i.e (P (Y = 1|X = 3))

Answer: 0.22
Solution:

P
fXY (x, y) = 1 ............. (i)

P
fX (x) = fXY (x, y) .............(ii)
y∈Ry
P
fY (y) = fXY (x, y) ...............(iii)
x∈RX

Hence, a1 = 0.10 , a2 = 0.40 , a3 = 0.1, a4 = 0.15, a5 = 0.1, a6 = 0.3

fXY (1, 3) 0.1
fY |X=3 (1) = = = 0.22
fX (3) 0.45
Course: Machine Learning - Foundations Page 4 of 7
7. (1 point) (Multiple Select) Which of the following options is/are correct?
A. If Cov[X, Y ] = 0, then X and Y are independent random variables.
B. Cov[X, X] = V ar(X)
C. If X andPY are two independent random variables and Z = X + Y then
fZ (z) = x fX (x) × fY (z − x)
D. If X andPY are two independent random variables and Z = X + Y then
fZ (z) = y fX (x) × fY (z − x)

Answer: B, C
Solution:

Option B

Cov[X, X] is the covariance between X and X i.e V ar(X)

Option C is correct from its definition.

8. (1 point) (Multiple Select)A discrete random variables X has the cumulative distri-
bution function is defined as follows.

x3 + k
FX (x) = , for x = 1, 2, 3
40
Which of the following options is/are correct for F (x) as given?
A. k = 17
259
B. V ar(X) =
320
C. k = 13
249
D. V ar(X) =
310

Answer: B, C
Solution:

For k

FX (3) = 1
Course: Machine Learning - Foundations Page 5 of 7
x3 + k
=1
40

Solving above equation to get k = 13

To calculate the variance, first calculate the probability distribution of X

We will get

14
P (X = 1) =
40
7
P (X = 2) =
40
19
P (X = 3) =
40
259
Now easily with V ar(X) equation we will get V ar(X) =
320
9. (1 point) In a game of Ludo, Player A needs to repeatedly throw an unbiased die till
he gets a 6. What is the probability that he needs fewer than 4 throws? (Answer the
question correct to two decimal points.)

Solution:

1
P (6) =
6

As it resembles geometric distribution. Hence,

P3 1 1
n=1 × (1 − )5 = 0.6
6 6

10. (1 point) (Multiple Select) Let X and Y be two random variables with joint PMF
fXY (x, y) given in Table 10.3.

y
0 1 2
x
1 1 1
0 6 4 8
1 1 1
1 8 6 6

Table 10.3: Joint PMF of X and Y .

Which of the following options is/are correct for fXY (x, y) given in Table 10.1.
Course: Machine Learning - Foundations Page 6 of 7
5
A. P (X = 0, Y ≤ 1) =
12
7
B. P (X = 0, Y ≤ 1) =
12
C. X and Y are independent.
D. X and Y are dependent.

Answer: A, D

11. (1 point) A discrete random variables X has the probability function as given in table
10.4.

x 1 2 3 4 5 6
P (X) a a a b b 0.3

Table 2: Table 10.4: Probability distribution

If E(X) = 4.2, then evaluate a + b

Answer: 0.3
P
P (X = x) = 1

3a + 2b = 0.7

P
E(X) = P (X = xi ) × xi

6a + 9b = 2.4

Solving both equations, we get a = 0.1 and b = 0.2

12. (1 point) A discrete random variable X has the probability function as follows.
(
k × (1 − x)2 , for x = 1, 2, 3
P (X = x) =
0, otherwise

Evaluate E(X)

Answer: 2.8
Course: Machine Learning - Foundations Page 7 of 7
Solution:

P
P (X = x) = 1

k + 4k = 1

k = 0.2

P
E(X) = P (X = xi ) × xi

0.2 × 2 + 0.8 × 3

0.4 + 2.4 = 2.8