SOLUTION: a new surgical procedure is said to be successful 80% of the time. This procedure will be performed on five different patients in the coming week. What is the probability of a fail

Question 1203267: a new surgical procedure is said to be successful 80% of the time. This procedure will be performed on five different patients in the coming week. What is the probability of a failure?
Found 2 solutions by ikleyn, greenestamps:
Answer by ikleyn(52915) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

The problem/question is posed INCORRECTLY and in this form can not be solved/answered.

To be correct, it should point the number of failed cases .

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Do you create/compose your problems on your own,
or you get them by phone and then re-translate to the forum ?

Answer by greenestamps(13216) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Although the statement of the problem is, in fact, deficient, as the other tutor says, don't take her unnecessary snide comments personally. You have probably stated the problem exactly as it was given to you.

One simple interpretation of the problem is that, since the probability of success is 80%, the probability of a failure is 20%.

Given that the statement of the problem says the procedure was performed 5 times, very likely the intent of the problem is to find the probability that there is AT LEAST one failure among the five procedures.

Then the answer is 1, minus the probability that all five procedures are successful.

ANSWER: 2101/3125, or 67.232%

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