can anyone help and explain why this is either proportional or not? urgent!! (it needs an explanation too)

An assembly consists of two mechanical components. suppose that the probabilities that the first and second components meet specifications are 0.87 and 0.84. assume that the components are independent. determine the probability mass function of the number of components in the assembly that meet specifications. x

Simplify the given expression leaving the answer in improper fraction form. 2/3+5/6

Astudent is determining the influence of different types of food on the growth rate of spiders. she feeds one group of spiders two caterpillars twice a week. the other group received similarly-sized beetles twice a week. she records the amount of time required for individuals to reach sexual maturity. her hypothesis is that the spiders feeding on caterpillars will have a faster growth rate because caterpillars have a higher protein content compared to beetles. in this experiment, what is the dependent variable? spiders assigned to different feeding groups. time required to reach sexual maturity number of prey items fed twice a week. growth rates of each group.