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Calculation of $EX$ using the binomial expansion formula is easy:

\begin{align} EX &= \sum_{x=0}^{n}x\frac{n!}{(n-x)!x!}p^{x}(1-p)^{n-x}\\& = np \sum_{x=1}^{n}\frac{(n-1)!}{(n-x)!(x-1)!}p^{x-1}(1-p)^{n-x}\\& = np(p+(1-p))^{n-1}\\& = np \end{align}

How do I calculate $EX^2$ using the binomial expansion formula?

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    $\begingroup$ What is the problem you are facing when trying to go through the summation for $EX^2$? Would you please explain so that the community could provide you with a good answer? (...the answer below gives all you need to knock this off) $\endgroup$
    – Math-fun
    Commented Oct 18, 2023 at 5:02
  • $\begingroup$ Don't use the formula: you know the variance of $X$, so once you have $E[X]$ all you need to is add its square to the variance to obtain $E[X^2].$ $\endgroup$
    – whuber
    Commented Oct 18, 2023 at 16:02

1 Answer 1

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This is a common exercise many of the textbooks would provide. There is not much to tell here but the approach to ease the derivation is to use the fact that ${n\choose x}=\frac nx \cdot\frac{n-1}{x-1}{{n-2}\choose{x-2}}$ and writing $x^2=x(x-1) +x$ to utilize the former. You only need to incorporate them in $\mathbb EX^2.$

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