Name: SOLUTIONS Year 8

Levelling Activity
Understand Chance
Levels Covered in this Assessment:
Understand Chance
C&D 12.3 Distinguishes certain from uncertain events and describes familiar, easily understood
events as having equal chances of happening or being more or less likely.
C&D 12.4 Places events in order from those least likely to those most likely to happen on the basis
of numerical and other information about the events.
C&D 12.5 Interprets and makes numerical statements of probability based on lists of equally likely
outcomes and using fractions and percentages.

C&D 12.3
Question 1
From each the following tables what would be the most likely outcome?
a) A slice of fruit is randomly selected from platter that has the following pieces of fruit.
Fruit Number of Slices
Apple 12
Orange 15 Mango
Mango 32
Banana 26

b) A coloured marble is chosen from a bag of marbles at random with the following colours of
marbles in it.
Colour Number of Marbles
Blue 2
Pink 5 Pink
Green 3
Yellow 4
Purple 2

Question 2
State a situation involving two possible outcomes that have an equal opportunity of happening.

Anything that is suitable

eg. Tossing a coin; etc…

Question 3

Levelling Activity – Understand Chance Page 1 of 9

John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School Year 8
a) Rank each of the following events according to the chance of them happening. Use “1” for the
event least likely to happen and “3” for the most likely to occur.

2 Tomorrow your Maths teacher will come to school tomorrow with blue hair

3 Tomorrow you will come to school

1 Yesterday was Friday

b) Explain why the event that you ranked as “1” is the least likely to occur (do not make reference to
the other two events in this explanation).

If yesterday was Friday then today would be

Saturday and there would be no school. So it is
impossible.

Question 4
Certain 50-50 Doubtful Impossible

For each of the following situations use the most appropriate word from the list above to describe
the probability of that event occurring.
a) The toss of a coin results in a tail
50-50

b) The sun will be shining tomorrow

Certain
c) The moon will be green with pink Polk-a-dolts tonight

Impossible
d) Yesterday was Saturday

Impossible
e) You will get given no homework this week
Doubtful

Levelling Activity – Understands Chance Page 2 of 9

John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School Year 8
C&D 12.4
Question 5
The following table gives the amount of rain received in the listed Australian cities during the month
of May. Use this data to order the cities from most likely to have rain in May to least likely to have
rain in May.

Amount of
City
Rain (mm) Melbourne
Perth 182 Darwin
Sydney 153 Perth
Melbourne 397
Darwin 213 Sydney

Question 6
A wooden cube has the numbers 2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5 written onto it so that it can be used as a dice with a
difference.
a) What are the possible outcomes from this dice?

2, 3, and 5

b) List these from least likely to occur to most likely to occur.

2, 5, 3

Question 7
Colour the following spinner using red, blue and green pencils so that there is less of chance of the
spinner landing on green.

Many possible
solutions. There
must be less
green than red or
blue (even no
green at all)

Question 8
Levelling Activity – Understands Chance Page 3 of 9
John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School Year 8
Colour the following spinner so that there is an equal chance of landing on blue as red.
Many possible
solutions there
only has to be the
same number of
blue sections as
red sections
(0, 1, 2 or 3)

0.110.55

Question 9
For each of the following words draw an arrow from the word to approximately where the word
y
could be plotted onto the probability scale.
1

50-50

Impossible

Certain
0.5

Unlikely

Anywhere in this area.

0
x

Question 10
Levelling Activity – Understands Chance Page 4 of 9
John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School Year 8
Colour the marbles in the following bag so that there is more chance of getting a blue marble than a
red marble.

Many possible
solutions
there only
has to be
more
blue than red.

C&D 12.5
Question 11
a) What does it mean if an event has a probability of 1?

That it is certain to happen.

b) Give an example of an event that has a probability of 1.

Anything that is suitable.

eg. Drawing a red marble out of a
bag of only red marbles.

Question 12
Jack and Jill are playing a board game. For each turn they have to roll a standard die.
a) What are the possible outcomes for each roll of the die?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6

Levelling Activity – Understands Chance Page 5 of 9

John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School Year 8
b) Calculate the following probabilities for a standard die
i) Pr (4)1
6

ii) Pr (6)1
6

iii) Pr (even)
3 1

6 2

iv) Pr (number)1

v) Pr (prime)3 1

6 2

vi) Pr (number < 2) 1

6

vii) Pr (number ≥ 3)4 2


6 3

Question 13
A marble is randomly selected from a bag that contains 2 red marbles, 3 blue marbles, 4 green
marbles and 1 yellow marble. Calculate:
a) Pr (white) 0

b) Pr (blue) 3
10

c) Pr (green or red) 6 3

10 5

Levelling Activity – Understands Chance Page 6 of 9

John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School Year 8
Question 14
a) Using the spinner below colour it so that the following conditions are satisfied. Leave any left over
section white.

Pr (Green) = 30%
Pr (Blue) = 50% Green
Pr (Red) = 10%
Blue

Red

b) What is the Pr (White)?

10%
Question 15
Peter spins a spinner with 6 different colours on it 50 times. He gets the following results.
Colour Frequency
Red 10
Blue 5
Pink 10
Yellow 2
Purple 3
Green 20
Totals 50

Assume that these results are in proportion to the amount of the spinner coloured each of the
colours.
a) What colour is most likely? Green

b) Calculate:
i) Pr (Blue) 5  1
50 10

ii) Pr (Green) 20 2

50 5

iii) Pr (Blue, Purple or Pink) 18 9


50 25

c) If Peter were to have spun the spinner 250 times, how many times would he have spun:
Levelling Activity – Understands Chance Page 7 of 9
John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School Year 8
i) Pink?
50

ii) Purple?
15

Question 16
Three friends are discussing what they are doing after school. B1 says that there is a 65% chance
that he will do his homework, B2 says that there is a 60% chance that he will go for a ride on his
scooter, and Teddy says that there is a 66% chance that she will read a book.

List the events in order of least likely to most likely.

B2 going for a ride on his scooter
B1 doing his homework
Teddy reading a book
Question 17
Interpret the following statement:

“The probability of the students in this class passing this test is 87%”

Anything appropriate that describes it.

eg. 87% of the student in the class should pass; A lot more
students will pass rather than fail;

Question 18
When 2 dice are thrown there are 36 distinctly different combinations that can occur.
a) Complete the following table to show the sums of those 36 combinations.
+ 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
b) What is the probability of the following events?
i) Pr (sum of 7) 6  1
36 Chance
Levelling Activity – Understands 6 Page 8 of 9
John Septimus Roe Anglican Community School Year 8

ii) Pr (sum of 3) 2 1

36 18
iii) Pr (double) 6
NB: Simplification not necessary
1

36 6

iv) Pr (sum ≥ 5) 30 5

36 6

v) Pr (sum < 4) 3 1

36 12

5
c) Using your table find all of the sums that have the probability of them occurring of .
36

6 or 8

Levelling Activity – Understands Chance Page 9 of 9