Making decisions with expected values

The topic of  is under the Probability and statistics Math Mission. This exercise uses probability and random variables to help motivate decisions in real situations.

Types of Problems
There are three types of problems in this exercise:


 * 1) Which game to play: This problem describes a couple different scenarios for a game that can be played. The student has to find the expected payoffs and then use these values to determine which if any of the games they should choose to play.Makedec1.png
 * 2) More profitable: This problem describes a business decision where the payoffs depend on purchases that are made. The student is asked to determine the expected value of the two scenarios and select which one is the wiser business decision.Makedec2.png
 * 3) Empirical decision: This problem describes a situation where a person collected actual data to model certain choices. The student is asked to determine the expected values based on this empirical data and make a decision about which path is smarter.Makedec3.png

Strategies
This exercise is medium to get accuracy badges, especially the first time through as you need to get adjusted to subtleties in the problem analysis. Even if you spend time learning the nuances, the speed badges are still hard because of the amount it takes to read and fully understand each situation.
 * 1) Be careful to read if you want the expected value of one run or several runs.
 * 2) The problem More profitable has three subtypes: insurance, virus protection, and whether or not to purchase a light.
 * 3) The problem Empirical decision has two subtypes: putting items on sale and buying certain types of tickets.
 * 4) After you learn how to do a certain subtype, subsequent ones are done similarly. It might be wise to take your time to learn how to do them carefully, then try for speed.