This Exam P sample reference tests Poisson Distribution. The zero-count probability identifies the Poisson mean as 1.5. The upper tail from four is 0.0656425, and normalizing it by the positive-count probability 1-exp(−1.5) gives 0.0844961, so choice B is correct.
These notes identify the calculation error associated with each wrong letter when that error is reproducible.
AThis is the unconditioned upper tail, Pr(N ≥ 4) = 0.065642, rounded to 0.066. It omits division by Pr(N ≥ 1).
CA reported value of 0.138 would imply an unconditioned numerator 0.138 × (1 minus e raised to the power −1.5), which equals 0.1072, but direct summation gives only 0.06564 above the threshold. It is incompatible with the Poisson masses.
DReplacing both phrases 'at least' by 'exactly' gives Pr(N = 4)/Pr(N = 1) = 1.5³/24 = 0.140625, near 0.141.
EUsing an off-by-one threshold gives Pr(N ≥ 3 given N ≥ 1) = 0.24606, which rounds to the listed 0.250 rather than the required four-or-more tail.
Original practice · fully worked
Original variant: classify messages within a fixed total
During an hour, urgent and routine server messages arrive as independent Poisson counts with respective means 3 and 2. Given that exactly five messages arrive in total, calculate the probability that at least three are urgent.
A 0.07776
B 0.33696
C 0.60000
D 0.68256
E 0.91296
Variant answer in brief
Conditional on a total of five, the urgent count is binomial with success probability 3/(3+2)=0.6. Its probability of at least three successes is 0.68256, so choice D is correct.
Setup
Setup
Let U and R be the two independent Poisson counts. Conditioning their sum converts the component count into a binomial allocation.
U∼Poisson(3),R∼Poisson(2)
Model
Model
Given five total messages, each of the five labels is urgent with probability proportional to the urgent rate.
U∣(U+R=5)∼Binomial(5,53)
Compute
Compute
Add the binomial masses for three, four, and five urgent messages.
The 3108-page Probability Proof Manual reorganizes 718 verified Exam P solutions by syllabus skill and adds formula proofs, error patterns, and original worked practice.