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counting and probability senior
Problem
Suppose that 7 boys and 13 girls line up in a row. Let be the number of places in the row where a boy and a girl are standing next to each other. For example, for the row we have that . The average value of (if all possible orders of these 20 people are considered) is closest to
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
We approach this problem using Linearity of Expectation. Consider a pair of two people standing next to each other. Ignoring all other people, the probability that a boy is standing on the left position and a girl is standing on the right position is . Similarly, if a girl is standing on the left position and a boy is standing on the right position the probability is also . Thus, the total probability of the two people being one boy and one girl is . There are a total of 19 different adjacent pairs, so by Linearity of Expectation, we have that the expected value of is .
Final answer
A