Mathematics Homework Help

Finding the Magnitude Relationship Between Expected Values Question

 

I’m working on a probability question and need an explanation to help me learn.

In a sequence of characters “a” and “b” randomly arranged, let X be the number of
characters until the sequence “ab” first appears, and let Y be the number of characters
until the sequence “aa” first appears. What is the magnitude relationship between the
expected values of the numbers of X and Y ?