Don Mansfield Posted April 18, 2018 Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 Scenario: Assume you are an interested party who would like to file a protest against an agency. You intend to start with an agency protest, then if you lose file a GAO protest, then if you lose file a COFC protest, then if you lose file an appeal at the CAFC. You have a 20% chance of winning at each forum. Question: What is the probability that you will win in at least one forum? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankJon Posted April 18, 2018 Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 (edited) 59.04%. Edited April 18, 2018 by FrankJon Calculated for 5 venues initially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C Culham Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Mansfield Posted April 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 2 hours ago, C Culham said: 0 Carl, Did you use math to arrive at your answer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C Culham Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 No Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lionel Hutz Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 10 hours ago, FrankJon said: 59.04%. Agree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Vern Edwards Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 8 hours ago, Don Mansfield said: Carl, Did you use math to arrive at your answer? Don, you did not ask for a mathematical calculation. Question: Do you consider the COFC decision and the CAFC decision to be independent events? If so, please explain. 13 hours ago, Don Mansfield said: Question: What is the probability that you will win in at least one forum? Less than 50-50. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Fleharty Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 Mathematically: Probability of winning at agency: 20% Probability of winning at GAO conditional on losing at Agency: 20% * (1 - 20%) = 16% Probability of winning at COFC conditional on losing at Agency and GAO: 20% * (1 - 20% - 16%) = 12.8% Probability of winning at CAFC conditional on losing at Agency, GAO, and COFC: 20% * (1 - 20% - 16% - 12.8%) = 10.24% Combined probability of winning: 20% + 16% + 12.8% + 10.24% = 59.04% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankJon Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 3 minutes ago, Matthew Fleharty said: Mathematically: Probability of winning at agency: 20% Probability of winning at GAO conditional on losing at Agency: 20% * (1 - 20%) = 16% Probability of winning at COFC conditional on losing at Agency and GAO: 20% * (1 - 20% - 16%) = 12.8% Probability of winning at CAFC conditional on losing at Agency, GAO, and COFC: 20% * (1 - 20% - 16% - 12.8%) = 10.24% Combined probability of winning: 20% + 16% + 12.8% + 10.24% = 59.04% This is one way of calculating "at least one" probability. A simpler way is to calculate the probability of the outcome NOT occurring, then subtracting from 1. So here, you could get the response with 1 - (.80^4). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Mansfield Posted April 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 6 hours ago, Vern Edwards said: Question: Do you consider the COFC decision and the CAFC decision to be independent events? If so, please explain. Yes. You have a 20% chance of winning your case at the COFC, and a 20% chance of winning your case at the CAFC. I'm saving conditional probabilities for a future problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Fleharty Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 2 minutes ago, Don Mansfield said: Yes. You have a 25% chance of winning your case at the COFC, and a 25% chance of winning your case at the CAFC. I'm saving conditional probabilities for a future problem. 25% or 20%? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankJon Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 1 minute ago, Don Mansfield said: You have a 25% chance of winning your case at the COFC, and a 25% chance of winning your case at the CAFC. Don - You mean 20%? Can you establish whether this is intended purely as a mathematical problem, as the title implies, or whether there are other factors you want considered? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Mansfield Posted April 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 Oops. I meant 20%. 4 minutes ago, FrankJon said: Can you establish whether this is intended purely as a mathematical problem, as the title implies, or whether there are other factors you want considered? Purely mathematical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankJon Posted April 19, 2018 Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 Just now, Don Mansfield said: Purely mathematical. So I think a few of us have confirmed the answer, but we haven't heard a direct response from OP. Do you disagree? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Mansfield Posted April 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 I want to see if Vern is going to change his answer, based on my response to him. I'll post the answer by the end of the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Mansfield Posted April 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2018 FrankJon and Matthew are correct. I used FrankJon's method, but Matthew's method works, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Vern Edwards Posted April 20, 2018 Report Share Posted April 20, 2018 11 hours ago, Don Mansfield said: I want to see if Vern is going to change his answer, based on my response to him. I'll post the answer by the end of the day. I'm wondering if you can consider an appellate ruling on the COFC's decision as an independent event, since the appellate court does not review the protest de novo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feiguan Posted June 12, 2018 Report Share Posted June 12, 2018 Should be 59.04%, in my calculation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdvr Posted June 15, 2018 Report Share Posted June 15, 2018 Late to party here , but wouldn't it be 20% ? This is like a coin flip, the probability doesn't increase or compound as it goes through each appeal. Combining them assumes the results are connected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPulvino Posted June 15, 2018 Report Share Posted June 15, 2018 sdvr, While it's true that each event occurs separately, since the question is what is the chance that "at least one win occurs" you have to looks at all of the probabilities combined. As has been mentioned there are two ways to do this if you think in simple coin flips terms.... Chance of 1 heads in 4 flips, or chance of NOT all 4 flips being tails. Most statisticians will say the 2nd is easier then the first... here's why. One could work out all the separate cases – one head in four tosses, two heads, or three or four. H,H,H,H or H,H,H,T, or H,H,T,T .... etc until T.T.T.H But it's much easier to find the probability of no heads, and subtract that from one: or not T,T,T,T In our case Pr (at least one win in 4 cases) = 1 – Pr (no wins in 4 cases) = 1 – (0.8)4 = 59.04%. Since you have to look at all events, the number isn't just 20% as you start losing cases and then move to level, your next 20% chance is basically taking 20% of the 80% failure to get a L,W scenario. Hope that helps a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Fleharty Posted June 15, 2018 Report Share Posted June 15, 2018 35 minutes ago, sdvr said: Late to party here , but wouldn't it be 20% ? This is like a coin flip, the probability doesn't increase or compound as it goes through each appeal. Combining them assumes the results are connected. This is exactly why I showed the long form explanation...see above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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