Question

If a basketball player is a 74% free throw shooter, then, on average, how many free throws will he or she make in a game with eight free throw attempts? what is the variance of how many free throw attempts he or she will make? you can assume that each attempt is independent and identically distributed.

Answer 1

We are given the following variables:

p = probability of success / probability to shoot a free throw shot = 0.74

q = probability of failure = 1 – p = 0.26

n = number of samples / number of free throws = 8

 

We can solve for the average free throws he or she can make in the game using the formula:

average = n * p

average = 8 * 0.74

average = 5.92

round off:

average = 6 free throw shots

 

We can solve for the variance using the formula:

variance = n * p * q

variance = 8 * 0.74 * 0.26

variance = 1.5392

round off:

variance = 1.54 free throw shots