S2 June 2008 Q4

EdexcelOld spec8 marksPoisson Distribution

4. Each cell of a certain animal contains 11000 genes. It is known that each gene has a probability 0.0005 of being damaged.

A cell is chosen at random.

(a) Suggest a suitable model for the distribution of the number of damaged genes in the cell. (2)
(b) Find the mean and variance of the number of damaged genes in the cell. (2)
(c) Using a suitable approximation, find the probability that there are at most 2 damaged genes in the cell. (4)