This Exam P sample reference tests Exponential Distribution. After conditioning on survival through year 2, exponential memorylessness restarts the waiting clock. The original years 5 and 8 become residual times 3 and 6, so the required probability is exp(-3/4) − exp(-6/4) = 0.249236, which rounds to choice C.
These notes identify the calculation error associated with each wrong letter when that error is reproducible.
AUsing rate 1/2 instead of 1/4 gives exp(-5/2) − exp(-4) = 0.06377, near A. The two claim-free years are conditioning information, not a replacement for the stated mean.
BThe unconditional probability exp(-5/4) − exp(-8/4) = 0.15117 rounds to 0.15; it ignores the information that the waiting time has already exceeded two years.
DRounding exp(-3/4) to 0.5 and exp(-6/4) to 0.2 before subtracting gives 0.30. Such coarse intermediate rounding materially changes the result.
EThe value 0.75 is approximately the complement of the correct interval probability. The question asks for occurrence inside the interval, not outside it.
Original practice · fully worked
Original variant: remote pump repair
A remote irrigation pump requires an exponentially distributed amount of technician time with mean 10 hours. After 4 hours of work, the repair is still incomplete. Given that information, calculate the probability that the repair finishes between 7 and 12 hours after work began.
A 0.1954
B 0.2592
C 0.2915
D 0.4493
E 0.7085
Variant answer in brief
Memorylessness turns the requested original-time window into a residual-time window from 3 to 8 hours. Its probability is exp(-0.3) − exp(-0.8) = 0.291489, so choice C is correct.
Setup
Setup
Let R denote the total repair duration and record its rate and the elapsed-work condition.
R∼Exponential(0.1),R>4
Model
Model
The residual repair time after hour 4 remains exponential with rate 0.1.
(R−4∣R>4)∼Exponential(0.1)
7<R<12⟺3<R−4<8
Compute
Compute
Evaluate the probability between the two residual-time cutoffs.
Pr(7<R<12∣R>4)=e−0.1(3)−e−0.1(8)
=0.7408182207−0.4493289641=0.2914892566
Answer
Answer
The conditional completion probability is approximately 0.2915.
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