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Probability
Week 3

Simple Probability
Probability means how likely is it for an event to occur.
In the real world, events cannot be predicted with 100% certainty. The best we can do is say
how likely they are to happen, using the concept of probability.
Tossing a Coin
When a coin is tossed, there are two possible outcomes:
heads (H) and
Tails (T).
We say that the probability of the coin landing H is 1/2.
Similarly, the probability of the coin landing T is 1/2.
Throwing Dice
When a single die is thrown, there are six possible outcomes: 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6.
The probability of throwing any one of these numbers is 1/6.

Probability
In general:
Probability of an event
happening =

Number of ways it can

happen

Total number of
outcomes
Example1): there are 5 marbles in a bag: 3 are red, and 2 are blue. What is the probability
that a blue marble will be picked?
Number of ways it can happen: 2 (there are 2 blues)
Total number of outcomes: 5 (there are 5 marbles in total) So the probability is 2/5 = 0.4
Probability Line
Probability is the chance that something will happen. It can be shown on a line.

We can say that the probability of an event occurring will be somewhere between impossible
and certain.
As well as words we can use fractions or decimals to show the probability of something
happening. Impossible is zero and certain is one. A fraction probability line is shown below.

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We can show on our line the chance that something will happen:
a) The sun will rise tomorrow.
b) I will not have to learn math at school.
c) If I flip a coin it will land heads up.
d) If you have a choice of red, yellow, blue or green you will choose red.
Probability always lies between 0 and 1
Remember the probability of an event will not be more than 1.
This is because 1 is certain that something will happen.
And the probability of an event will not be less than 0.
This is because 0 is impossible (sure that something will not happen).

Formulae:
1. Probability of an event:
In an experiment, an event is the result that we are interested in. The probability of an
event A, written P(A), is defined as

P(A) =
2. Complementary Event:
If the probability of an event, A, is P(A), then the probability that the event would not occur
(also called the complementary event) is 1 P(A)
3. P (A OR B) = P(A) + P(B)
which means the probability of A or B occurring is equal to the probability of A plus the
probability of B
4. P (A AND B) = P(A) x P(B)
which means the probability of A and B BOTH occurring is equal to the probability of A
multiplied by the probability of B

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The addition rule

If two (or more) events are mutually exclusive meaning they cannot occur simultaneously, we
can find the probability that one or the other of them happens by adding the probabilities of
each of them.
Example: the addition rule - What is the probability the first card is a king or a queen? It has
to be a king or queen, it cant be both simultaneously.
The Multiplication Rule:
When two events, A and B, are independent, the probability of both occurring is
the product:
P(A and B) = P(A) P(B)
Independent means they do not affect each other.
Examples of independent events are:
Landing on heads after tossing a coin AND rolling a 5 on a single 6-sided die.
Choosing a marble from a jar AND landing on heads after tossing a coin.
Choosing a 3 from a deck of cards, replacing it, AND then choosing an ace as the second
card.
Rolling a 4 on a single 6-sided die, AND then rolling a 1 on a second roll of the die.
Problems on probability of an event
Example 1:
When a fair dice is thrown, what is the probability of getting
a) the number 5
b) a number that is a multiple of 3
c) a number that is greater than 6
d) a number that is less than 7
Solution:
A fair die is an unbiased die where each of the six numbers is equally likely to turn up.
S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
a) Let A = event of getting the number 5 = {5}
Let n(A) = number of outcomes in event A = 1
n(S) = number of outcomes in S = 6

b) Let B = event of getting a multiple of 3

Multiple of 3 = {3, 6}

c) Let C = event of getting a number greater than 6

There is no number greater than 6 in the sample space S.
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C ={}

A probability of 0 means the event will never occur.

d) Let D = event of getting a number less than 7
Numbers less than 7 = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}

A probability of 1 means the event will always occur.

Example 2 :
Each of the letters HELLO is written on a card. A card is chosen at random from the bag.
What is the probability of getting the letter L?
Solution: Since the card is randomly selected, it means that each card has the same
chance of being selected.
S = {H, E, L 1, L 2, O} There are two cards with the letter L
Let A = event of getting the letter L = {L 1, L 2}

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Problems on complementary event

Example 3:

.
What is the probability of not getting a white ball?
Solution:

Example 4:

.
What is the probability of drawing a blue card?
Solution:
Let A = event of drawing a red card
B = event of drawing a blue card
P(B) is the probability of drawing a blue card which is also the same as the probability of not
drawing a red card (Since the cards are either red or blue)

A and B are called complementary events. This may be denoted as:

P(A ) = P(B) (recall in sets that A is the complement of A)
P(A) = P(B )
We can generally state that: P(A) + P(A) = 1

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Example 5:
A number is chosen at random from a set of whole numbers from 1 to 50. Calculate the
probability that the chosen number is not a perfect square.
Solution:
We are going to use the complement and subtraction method. We find the
Probability that it is a perfect square and Subtract from 1.
Let A be the event of choosing a perfect square.
Let A be the event that the number chosen is not a perfect square.
A = {1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49}
Number of elements in A, n (A) = 7
Total number of elements, n(S) = 50

The probability that the number chosen is not a perfect square is

Problems on probability
We will now look at some examples of probability problems.
Example 6:
At a car park there are 100 vehicles, 60 of which are cars, 30 are vans and the remainder
are bikes. If every vehicle is equally likely to leave, find the probability of:
a) van leaving first.
b) bike leaving first.
c) car leaving second if either a lorry or van had left first.
Solution:
a) Let S be the sample space and A be the event of a van leaving first.
n(S) = 100
n(A) = 30
Probability of a van leaving first:

b) Let B be the event of a bike leaving first.

n(B) = 100 60 30 = 10
Probability of a bike leaving first:

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c) If either a bike or van had left first, then there would be 99 vehicles remaining, 60 of
which are cars. Let T be the sample space and C be the event of a car leaving.
n(T) = 99
n(C) = 60
Probability of a car leaving after a bike or van has left:

Example 7:
A survey was taken on 30 classes at a school to find the total number of left-handed
students in each class. The table below shows the results:
No. of left-handed
0
1
2
3
4
5
students
Frequency (no. of
1
2
5
12
8
2
classes)
A class was selected at random.
a) Find the probability that the class has 2 left-handed students.
b) What is the probability that the class has at least 3 left-handed students?
c) Given that the total number of students in the 30 classes is 960, find the probability that a
student randomly chosen from these 30 classes is left-handed.
Solution:
a) Let S be the sample space and
A be the event of a class having 2 left-handed students.
n(S) = 30
n(A) = 5

b) Let B be the event of a class having at least 3 left-handed students.

n(B) = 12 + 8 + 2 = 22

c) First find the total number of left-handed students:

No. of left-handed
0
1
2
3
4
5
students, x
Frequency, f
1
2
5
12
8
2
(no. of classes)
fx
0
2
10
36
32
10
Total no. of left-handed students = 2 + 10 + 36 + 32 + 10 = 90
Here, the sample space is the total number of students in the 30 classes, which was given as
960.
Let T be the sample space and C be the event that a student is left-handed.
n(T) = 960
n(C) = 90

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Practice problems on Probability

1) From an ordinary deck of cards, one card is drawn. What is the probability that the card
drawn is a queen and a black card?
Solution
1) there are 52 cards in the deck, 4 of which are Queens. Two of these queens are black.
Therefore, the probability of drawing a black queen is 2/52, which equals 1/26.
2) There are 14 girls and 15 boys in a class. If the teacher calls on two students, what is the
probability that they are 2 boys?
Solution 2) (15/29) x (14/28) = 210/812 = .2586
(15/29) is the probability that the first student will be a boy (because 15 out of 29 students
are boys). You multiply this by the probability that the second student picked will be a boy
(14/28) because there are only 28 students left to choose from because you took out the
first student
3) A bag contains 2 green marbles and 4 blue marbles, and 5 red. If a marble is chosen at
random, what is the probability of choosing 2 blue marbles if the first marble is returned to
the bag before the second marble is chosen?
Solution 3) (4/11) x (4/11) = 16/121= .132
This is because the probability of choosing a blue marble on the first try is 4/11, and since
you replace the marble, the second probability is the same (4/11). You multiply the 2
probabilities together because of the formula
P(A AND B) = P(A) x P(B)
which means the probability of A and B BOTH occurring is equal to the probability of A
multiplied by the probability of B
4) Sally takes a quiz with three true-false questions. She does not know the answers to any
of the questions, so she guesses on all three. What is the probability that she will get all
three questions correct?
Solution 4) So there are only two options for each question - either true or false
So, the probability that she gets the first one right is (the same as tossing a coin).
Similarly, the probability that she gets the second one right is again , and the same for the
third.
The probability that she gets all three right is the product of the individual probabilities, i.e.
xx=
[ Compare with the coin-tossing analogy. Suppose Heads = correct answer, Tails = incorrect
answer. The number of different results from tossing a coin three times is 8]
TTT
TTH
THT
HTT
THH

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HTH
THH
HHH
Only one of those eight results in three correct (three Heads). So the probability of that
result is ]
5) A fruit cocktail tree grows oranges, grapefruits, and lemons. This season, there are 4
oranges, 6 grapefruits, and a number of lemons on the tree. If the probability of picking a
lemon is 2/3, then how many lemons are on the fruit cocktail tree?
Solution 5)
Probability of picking 1 lemon out of x lemons is
x/(6+4+x) = 2/3
Therefore, 3*x = 2*(10+x)
x = 20
There are 20 lemons.
Because 1/3 of the tree is oranges and grapefruits, then 10 fruits is 1/3 of the tree.
10 times 3 is 30, and 2/3 of 30 is 20, so there's 20 lemons.
6) If two cards are selected out of a deck of 52 cards, what is the probability that they are
both hearts without being replaced?
Solution 6) The probability of drawing the first heart is 13/52. Now we do not replace the
card so we have 12 hearts left and 51 cards left. The probability of drawing a second heart
given that the first one is a heart is 12/51. Therefore, the probability is (13/52)*(12/51).
7) When a fair die is thrown, what is the probability of getting a number greater than 4?
Solution 7) 2/6= 1/3 (6 faces, 5 and 6 are greater than 4)
8) If a number is chosen at random from the numbers 1 to 20 inclusive, what is the
probability that:
a) a prime number will be picked?
b) an even number will be picked?
c) a single digit number will be picked?
Solution 8)
a) a prime number will be picked? 8/20=2/5 (prime numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11,13, 17,19)
b) an even number will be picked? 10/20=1/2
c) a single digit number will be picked? 9/20
9) Each of the letters of the word SUCCESS is written on a card and all the cards are
placed into a bag. A card is randomly selected from the bag. Find the probability that the
card bears:
a) the letter S
b) a vowel
c) the letter A
Solution 9)
a) the letter S 3/7
b) a vowel 2/7
c) the letter A 0
10) A bag contains 7 white balls, 3 red balls and 2 black balls. A ball is picked from the bag
at random. Find the probability of:
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a) picking a red ball.

b) picking a black ball.
c) Picking either a white or black ball.
Solution 10)
a) picking a red ball. 3/12=1/4
b) picking a black ball. 2/12=1/6
c) picking either a white or black ball. 9/12=3/4 [(7+2)/(12)]

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