10/7/2020 Simple Probability:Exercises

Exercise: Simple Probability

1. A Drama class has 8 female and 7 male students.
a. One student is selected at random to deliver a monologue. What is the probability that
a female student is selected?

2. Matthew's shopping bag has 2 red peppers, 7 green peppers, 3 yellow peppers and 3
purple peppers. Without looking, Matthew takes one pepper out of the bag and eats it.
a. What is the probability that it is not a green pepper?
b. What is the probability that it is either yellow or red pepper?

3. Amparo has 4 blue pens, 2 black pens, 2 green pens and 1 red pen in her pocket.
Find the probability that a pen picked by Amparo at random is
a. blue
b. not green
c. neither blue nor black
d. either red or black.

4. The table below shows the number of left and right handed squash player in a school.
Left handed Right handed Total
Male 5 18 23
Female 2 25 27
Total 7 43 50

A squash player is selected at random from this group to be the president of the
squash club. Find the probability that the player is
a. left handed
b. female and left handed

5. The diagram below shows the

result of a Spanish vocabulary
test that has 5 questions in a
class. Find the probability that
a student chosen at random
from this class has
a. 3 correct answers.
b. less than 5 correct
answers.
c. 2 or more correct
answers.

6. An ordinary fair die is thrown.

Find the probability that the
number obtained is
a. a multiple of 2
b. less than 5
c. a factor of 4.

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7. There are five cards on the table. The cards are "1 red ♥", "2 black ♣", "3 red ♥", "4 black ♠",
and "5 red ♦". One card is selected at random.
a. What is the probability that the card is red?
b. What is the probability that the card has an odd integer?

Instead of selecting one card, we will now select TWO cards at random, one after the
other.

c. What is the probability that the integer on the first card selected is larger than the
integer on the second card?
d. What is the probability that the sum of these two integers is odd?

8. There are 6 male and 9 female students in a math class. Half of these male students and 5 of
the female students are in the movie club.
A student is picked at random to take a photo of the class. Find the probability that this
student
a. is a male.
b. is not in the movie club.
c. is a male and in the movie club.
d. is a female and not in the movie club.

Solutions:
(1a) P(female)= 8/15 ; (2a) p(not green) = 8/15 by counting or by 1-P(green) = 1-7/15 = 8/15. (2b)
P(yellow or red) = P(yellow) + P(red) since these are exclusive events. These peppers cannot be
both yellow and red at the same time. P(yellow or red) = 5/15 = 1/3.
(3a) P(blue)= 4/9, (3b) P(not green) = 1 -P(green) = 7/9, (3c) P(neither blue nor black)= 1 -
P(blue)-P(black) = 3/9 = 1/3. Or simply by counting all pens that are neither blue nor black. (3d)
P(either red or black) = P(red) + P(black) = 3/9 = 1/3.
(4a) P(left handed) = 7/50 from table. (4b)P(female and left handed) = 2/50 from table.
(5a) P(3 correct) = 4/15. (5b) P(less than 5 correct) = 1- P(5 correct) = 1 -2/15 = 13/15. Or by
simple counting. (5c) P(2 or more correct) = 1-P(1 correct) = 14/15 or simply by counting.
(6a) Multiple of 2 are 2,4 & 6. p(multiple of 2) = 3/6 = 1/2. (6b) P(less than 5) = 4/6 = 2/3. (6c)
Factors of 4 are 1, 2, and 4. P(factor of 4) = 3/6 = 1/2.
(7a) P(red)=3/5. (7b) P(odd integer)= 3/5. (7c) One easy way to approach this question is to draw
a lattice diagram Each dot represents a possible outcome. First
card = 1 and second card =1 is not possible because we are picking
up two cards one after another. Similarly [2,2], [3,3], [4,4] and
[5,5] are impossible. The shaded region represents all outcomes
where the integer on the first card is larger than the interger on
the second card. Answer = 1/2.
(7d) P(sum is odd) = 12/20 = 6/10 by using the lattice diagram.
Write out the sum for each dot and count those that are odds.
(8a) P(male) = 6/15 = 2/5 [The golden box in the table](8b) P(not in movie club) = 7/15 [The pink
box in the table] (8c) P(male & in movie club) = 3/15 =1/5 [The salmon color box in the table].
(8d) P(female & not in movie club) = 4/15 [The yellow box in the table]. To visualize these
information better, we can arrange the given information into a table similar to that in question 4
above. The table is shown below.
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10/7/2020 Simple Probability:Exercises

In movie club Not in movie club Total

Male 3 (given) 3 6 (given)
Female 5 (given) 4 9 (given)
Total 8 7 15

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