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JEE Advanced 2017 Paper 1 · Mathematics · Probability · medium

A fair coin is tossed 6 times. Let E be the event that no two consecutive tosses are both heads, and F the event that exactly three heads occur.

One or more options correct

A fair coin is tossed 66 times. Let EE be the event that no two consecutive tosses are both heads, and FF the event that exactly three heads occur. Which of the following is (are) correct?
  1. A. P(E)=2164P(E)=\dfrac{21}{64}
  2. B. P(F∣E)=16P(F\mid E)=\dfrac16
  3. C. P(E∣F)=14P(E\mid F)=\dfrac14
  4. D. P(E∩F)=18P(E\cap F)=\dfrac18
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Answer: A

Count sequences of length 66 with no two adjacent H: they are counted by Fibonacci numbers, F8=21F_8=21, so P(E)=2164P(E)=\frac{21}{64}. Sequences with exactly 33 heads and none adjacent: choose 33 non-adjacent positions out of 66, (6−3+13)=(43)=4\binom{6-3+1}{3}=\binom43=4, so P(E∩F)=464=116P(E\cap F)=\frac4{64}=\frac1{16}. Also P(F)=(63)/64=2064P(F)=\binom63/64=\frac{20}{64}. Therefore P(F∣E)=421P(F\mid E)=\frac{4}{21} and P(E∣F)=420=15P(E\mid F)=\frac{4}{20}=\frac15. (A) is correct. (B) 16≠421\frac16\ne\frac4{21}; incorrect. (C) 14≠15\frac14\ne\frac15; incorrect. (D) 18≠116\frac18\ne\frac1{16}; incorrect. Exhaustive enumeration of all 6464 sequences confirms these values. Answer: A only. A common slip is to confuse P(E∣F)P(E\mid F) with P(F∣E)P(F\mid E): the conditioning event changes the denominator from 2020 to 2121 favourable sequences.
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