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Course: Statistics — Third Secondary
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Expectation and Variance

Statistics — Third Secondary

Expectation and Variance

Expectation or expected value

Expectation or expected value

  • The expectation (expected value) of a discrete random variable is the mean of its probability distribution.
  • It represents the average of the values we obtain in the long run when the experiment is repeated many times.
  • It is denoted by μ or E(X), and it is calculated by:

μ = Σ (x × f(x))

  • That is, we multiply each value by its probability and add the products.
  • The expectation does not have to be one of the possible values of the variable.
  • For example, when a fair die is rolled, the expectation is 3.5, which cannot appear in a single roll.
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