Question

Suppose that the probabilities of a customer purchasing 0, 1, or 2 books at a book store are 0.1, 0.3, and 0.6, respectively. What is the expected number of books a customer will purchase?

The expected number of books that the customer will purchase is: _______

Answer 1

To calculate the expected number of books a customer will purchase, each possible number of books is multiplied by its probability and these values are summed, resulting in an expected number of 1.5 books.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the expected number of books a customer will purchase, we multiply each outcome by its probability and then sum these products. This can be conceptualized as weighted average where the weights are the probabilities of each possible outcome.

• For 0 books: 0 books × 0.1 = 0
• For 1 book: 1 book × 0.3 = 0.3
• For 2 books: 2 books × 0.6 = 1.2

Adding these up:

Expected number = 0 + 0.3 + 1.2 = 1.5 books

Therefore, the expected number of books that a customer will purchase is 1.5 books.