Original practice · fully worked
Original variant: packet completion within a time window
A data packet's completion time T is exponentially distributed. Monitoring shows that 25% of packets remain unfinished after 6 seconds. Calculate the probability that a packet finishes after 4 seconds but before 8 seconds.
- A
0.1575 - B
0.2394 - C
0.5543 - D
0.6031 - E
0.8425
Answer and calculation
The six-second survival condition gives λ=ln(4)/6. The required survival difference is exp(-4lambda)-exp(-8lambda)=0.239360, so choice B is correct.
Setup
Setup
Infer the exponential rate from the observed survival probability.
e−6λ=0.25 λ=6ln4 Model
Model
Completion in the stated window is the difference between survival at its lower and upper endpoints.
Pr(4<T<8)=S(4)−S(8) Compute
Compute
Evaluate both survival probabilities using the inferred rate.
S(4)=4−2/3=0.3968502630 S(8)=4−4/3=0.1574901312 S(4)−S(8)=0.2393601318 Answer
Answer
The completion-window probability rounds to 0.2394.
0.2394(B)