The analysis of mass spectra suggests that the existence of derivative peaks is strongly dependent on the intensity of the primary peaks. Peak selection from tandem mass spectrum is used to filter out noise and contaminant peaks. It is widely accepted that a valid primary peak tends to have high intensity and is accompanied by derivative peaks, including isotopic peaks, neutral loss peaks, and complementary peaks. Existing models for peak selection ignore the dependence between the existence of the derivative peaks and the intensity of the primary peaks. Simple models for peak selection assume that these two attributes are independent, however, this assumption is contrary to real data and prone to error.