Question

In rural Ireland, a century ago, the students had to form a line. The student at the front of the line would be asked to spell a word. If he spelled it correctly, he was allowed to sit down. If not, he received a whack on the hand with a switch and was sent to the end of the line. Suppose that a student could spell correctly 70% of the words in the lesson. What is the probability that the student would be able to sit down before receiving four whacks on the hand? Assume that the master chose the words to be spelled randomly and independently.

Answer 1

0,1,2,3 whacks

First guess correct 0.7

2nd guess coorect (1 whack) =0.21

3rd guess correct(2 whack)=0.063

4th guess correct (3 whack) = 0.0189

Total= 0.9919