SOLUTION: Suppose that 20% of the college seniors support an increase in federal funding for care of the elderly. If 20 college seniors are randomly selected, what is the probability that

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Question 1171181: Suppose that 20% of the college seniors support an increase in federal funding for care of
the elderly. If 20 college seniors are randomly
selected, what is the probability that at most 3
of them support the increased funding?

Answer by ikleyn(52781)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

It is a binomial distribution type problem, where the probability under the question is the sum


     P = P(at most 3) = P(0) + P(1) + P(2) + P(3) =       (1)


The number of trials is              20;
The indexes of success trials        k = 0,1,2,3
The probability of success trial     p = 0.2;
                                     q = 1 - p
C(n,k) = n! / (k! * (n-k)!)          are binomial coefficients.


The sum  (1)  is a cumulative sum.


Instead of calculating every term of (1) individually and then summing them up, you may use Excel function 

BINOM.DIST(3, 20, 0.2, TRUE)  to calculate the cumulative sum value in one click.


In this way,  you get


    P =  = 0.411449.      ANSWER

Solved.

On Excel function BINOM.DIST, see its description everywhere, for example
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/binom-dist-function-c5ae37b6-f39c-4be2-94c2-509a1480770c


On binompdf function for pocket calculators TI-83 and TI-84 see the link
http://users.rowan.edu/~schultzl/ti/binomial.pdf


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If you want to see other similar solved problems, look into the lessons
    - Solving problems on Binomial distribution
    - How to calculate Binomial probabilities using Technology
    - Solving problems on Binomial distribution with Technology
in this site.



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