Question

Starting at a fixed time, each car entering an intersection is observed to see whether it turns left (L), right (R), or goes straight ahead (A). The experiment terminates as soon as a car is observed to turn left. Let X = the number of cars observed. What are possible X values?Given the outcomes below, find their associated X values.Outcome: RRL AARRL AARL RRAL ARLx= _____

Answer 1

The possible X values are the natural numbers.

RRL: X=3

AARRL: X=5

AARL: X=4

RRAL: X=4

ARL: X=3

Explanation:

Since we are going to observe the cars and the experiment will end when one of them turns left, and X is the number of cars observed, the possible X values will be the natural numbers (1,2,3....). Clearly we can observe any number of cars before one of them turns left. We cannot observe negative numbers of cars, or zero cars (We are going to observe at least one car), or fractions of cars.

Given the outcomes below, find their associated X values:

For this part of the problem, we are going to count how many cars we observed in total and that will be the X value.

RRL: X=3

AARRL: X=5

AARL: X=4

RRAL: X=4

ARL: X=3