On the average, 1.8 customers per minute arrive at any one of the checkout counters of a grocery store. What type of probability distribution can be used to find out the probability that there will be no customer arriving at a checkout counter?
A) binomial distribution
B) Poisson distribution
C) hypergeometric distribution
D) None of the above.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The Poisson distribution is best for finding the probability of rare events occurring over a fixed interval of time or space, such as the number of customers arriving at a checkout counter. In this case, we are looking for the probability of no customer arriving, which is a rare event. The binomial distribution is used when there are only two possible outcomes (success or failure) and a fixed number of trials, which does not apply in this scenario. The hypergeometric distribution is used when sampling without replacement from a finite population, which also does not apply in this scenario.

On the Average, 1