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Separate signed attack advantage from damage clipped at zero

A board game uses eight-sided dice. The attack die has five faces marked 0, two marked 1 and one marked 2. After the attack throw, the defender throws a defence die with two faces marked 0, four marked 1 and two marked 2. Damage is attack score minus defence score, except that a negative difference gives zero damage.

Let A,D denote the attack and defence scores.

(i) Write down their distributions. Hence find the expectation and variance of A−DA-D. marks

X is the damage in one round.

(ii) Find its distribution, expectation and variance. marks

(iii) Explain why E(X)>0E(X)>0 although E(A)<E(D)E(A)<E(D). mark

[2017/RVHS/II/7]

CJC · Review problems · Question 11

Calculate the signed difference first, then apply the game’s zero-damage floor.

Read the worked solution