SIMULATION QUESTION AP STATISTICS

Question

The World Series ends when one team wins 4 games. Suppose that sports analysts consider one team to be stronger and give them a 60% chance of winning any individual game. Explain how you would use randomly generated numbers from 0 to 9 to model the likelihood that the underdog team will win the World Series that year?

Answer 1

Carry out a series of simulations

1st simulation.

Generate random numbers 0-9 (10 possibilities)

If the number is 0,1,2,3 then the weaker team wins

If the number is 4,5,6,7,8,9 then the stronger team wins

Continue the simulation until 1 team has won 4 games

Write 1 if underdog team wins, 0 if other wins

Repeat the simulation a large number of times, at least 1000

Then if N is your number of simulations

probability = number of wins for underdog team / N

Mike