1.8, 1.12 due on 10/3

Difficult
I didn't find this reading really difficult to understand, but there were some parts that were confusing when I first read it. The example in section 1.12 threw me off for a little bit. I tried to think about how I would go about solving the problem on my own before reading the solution below. Part (a) was pretty easy, but I was stumped by parts (b) and (c). I had to think about why we could consider some births "fictitious" when dealing with families with less than three children. If the solution was not given to me, I'm not sure I would have figured that out by myself.
Reflective
I like examples because I find them very useful. This reading cleared up how to apply some of the concepts we've learned in the previous readings. As mentioned above, I found section 1.12 very helpful. Section 1.8 was also good because I got to see a case in which using the complementary event is more efficient (faster) than a more direct approach.