Discrete probability distribution?

Question

can someone give me an example representing a discrete probability distribution and a continuous probability distribution and explain why your choice is discrete and continuous.

Answer 1

Discrete probability:  1000 people take a test with 50 questions on it and you graph the results of the test based on how many correct responses there are.  

The graph will be a series of points, because no one can get 30.25 questions correct.

Continuous probability:  the distribution of electromagnetic radiation versus intensity emitted by a star.  

Answer 2

Imagine inspection regimens in factories.

For a discrete distribution, imagine the company makes items in lots of 100. Periodically, an inspector selects a lot at random and inspects each item. Sometimes there are 0 defects, sometimes 1, sometimes 2, and so on. There are never 1.5 or 2.3 defects. Defects per lot will vary over time discretely over some range.

For a continuous distribution, occasionally an inspector pull an item (or sample of items) from production and measures some key characteristic such as length, diameter, or weight. The measurement can be any value (to any number of decimal places desired) within some reasonable range. The measurements done over time will vary continuously over some range.