Suppose we have a bag with $10$ slips of paper in it. Eight slips have a $7$ on them and the other two have a $9$ on them.

What is the expected value of the number shown when we draw a single slip of paper?

1 answer

To find the expected value of the number shown when drawing a slip of paper from the bag, we can use the formula for expectation, which is defined as:

\[ E[X] = \sum (x_i \cdot P(x_i)) \]

where \( x_i \) is a possible outcome and \( P(x_i) \) is the probability of that outcome.

In our case, we have two different outcomes from the slips of paper: the numbers \( 7 \) and \( 9 \).

  1. Calculate the probabilities of each outcome:

    • There are \( 8 \) slips with a \( 7 \).
    • There are \( 2 \) slips with a \( 9 \).
    • The total number of slips is \( 10 \).

    The probabilities for each outcome are as follows:

    • \( P(7) = \frac{8}{10} = 0.8 \)
    • \( P(9) = \frac{2}{10} = 0.2 \)
  2. Calculate the expected value: Now we can compute the expected value using the probabilities and the outcomes:

\[ E[X] = (7 \cdot P(7)) + (9 \cdot P(9)) \]

Substituting the values:

\[ E[X] = (7 \cdot 0.8) + (9 \cdot 0.2) \]

Calculating each term:

  • \( 7 \cdot 0.8 = 5.6 \)
  • \( 9 \cdot 0.2 = 1.8 \)

Now we add these two results:

\[ E[X] = 5.6 + 1.8 = 7.4 \]

Therefore, the expected value of the number shown when we draw a single slip of paper is

\[ \boxed{7.4} \]