What is the expected number of dinner meals eaten at home per week?

Question

A family has the opportunity to eat 7 dinner meals at home per week. The following chart shows the number of dinner meals eaten at home per week, x, and the associated probability P(x) for each number is given.

x P(x)

0 0.052

1 0.148

2 0.226

3 0.251

4 0.169

5 0.105

6 0.039

7 0.010

Answer 1

Hello Ki.,

To find the expected (average) number of meals, multiply each outcome times its probability and then add up all the results. It would start with 0(0.052) + 1(0.148) + ... .

You can see that the highest probabilities for meals at home are 2, 3, and 4 so the average should be around those numbers.