Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2014 / Discrete mathematics, continuous mathematics and probability / 8 / b / iii / Solution

Put $S=X+Y$. Given $X$, its conditional expected value is $3X/2$ and its conditional variance is $X/4$, since $X$ is then fixed. The law of total expectation and law of total variance giveThe two scores are dependent: the law of total covariance gives $\mathrm{Cov}(X,Y)=\mathrm{Cov}(X,X/2)=q/(2p^2)$. Adding their two variances without that covariance term would give an incorrect total.