For Exercise 17.1, see page 411; for Exercise 17.2, see page 414.
17.3 Randomness. Random phenomena have which of the following characteristics?
(a) They must be natural events. Man-made events cannot be random.
(b) They exhibit a clear pattern in very many repetitions, although any one trial of the phenomenon is unpredictable.
(c) They exhibit a clear pattern in a single trial but become increasingly unpredictable as the number of trials increases.
(d) They are completely unpredictable; that is, they display no clear pattern no matter how often the phenomenon is repeated.
17.4 Probability. Probability of a specific outcome of a random phenomenon is
(a) the number of times it occurs in very many repetitions of the phenomenon.
(b) the number repetitions of the phenomenon it takes for the outcome to first occur.
(c) the proportion of times it occurs in very many repetitions of the phenomenon.
(d) the ratio of the number of times it occurs to the number of times it does not occur in very many repetitions of the phenomenon.
17.5 Probability. Which of the following is true of probability?
(a) It is a number between 0 and 1.
(b) A probability of 0 means the outcome never occurs.
(c) A probability of 1 means the outcome always occurs.
(d) All of the above are true.
17.6 Probability. I toss a coin 1000 times and observe the outcome “heads” 519 times. Which of the following can be concluded from this result?
(a) This is suspicious because we should observe 500 heads if the coin is tossed as many as 1000 times.
(b) The probability of heads is approximately 519.
(c) The probability of heads is approximately 0.519.
(d) Nothing can be concluded until we verify that the pattern of heads and tails exhibits a reasonably regular pattern.
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17.7 Personal probabilities. Which of the following is true of a personal probability about the outcome of a phenomenon?
(a) It expresses an individual’s judgment of how likely an outcome is.
(b) It can be any number because personal probabilities need not be restricted to values between 0 and 1.
(c) It must closely agree with the proportion of times the outcome would occur if the phenomenon were repeated a large number of times.
(d) Negative values indicate strong disagreement with the probability most people would assign to the outcome.