CONDITIONAL PROBABILITY

• Probability – Chance/likelihood of occurrence of an event

• Examples:
• Probability that an exam will be postponed
• Chance that a candidate will clear the interview
• Chance that it would rain today
• Random experiment – all possible outcomes are known but the exact
output cannot be predicted in advance
• Sample space – set of all possible outcomes
• Event – subset of sample space
𝑛 𝐸
• Probability of occurrence of an event: 𝑃 𝐸 =
𝑛(𝑆)
• Lies between 0 and 1
• Probability of event A and B happening  𝑃 𝐴 ∩ 𝐵
• Probability of event A or B happening  𝑃 𝐴 ∪ 𝐵 = 𝑃 𝐴 + 𝑃(𝐵)
• Probability of an event A not happening  𝑃 𝐴′ = 1 − 𝑃(𝐴)
• Conditional probability – probability of event A occurring given that
event B has already occurred
𝑃 𝐴∩𝐵
𝑃 𝐴𝐵 =
𝑃(𝐵)
• Chain rule
𝑃 𝐴1 ∩ 𝐴2 ∩ 𝐴3 ∩ ⋯ ∩ 𝐴𝑛
= 𝑃 𝐴1 𝑃 𝐴2 𝐴1 𝑃 𝐴3 𝐴2 , 𝐴1 … 𝑃(𝐴𝑛 |𝐴𝑛−1 … 𝐴1 )
• Independence: If two events A and B are independent, then
𝑃 𝐴 ∩ 𝐵 = 𝑃 𝐴 𝑃(𝐵)
• 𝑃 𝐴 𝐵 = 𝑃(𝐴) and 𝑃 𝐵 𝐴 = 𝑃(𝐵)
• Bayes rule
𝑃(𝐴|𝐵)𝑃(𝐵) = 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) = 𝑃(𝐵|𝐴)𝑃(𝐴)
𝑃 𝐴𝐵 𝑃 𝐵
𝑃(𝐵|𝐴) =
𝑃(𝐴)
Question 1
I roll a fair die. Let A be the event that the outcome is an odd number, i.e., A={1,3,5}. Also let B be the event that the
outcome is less than or equal to 3, i.e., B={1,2,3}. What is the probability of A, P(A)? What is the probability of A
given B, P(A|B)?
Example
Question 2:
I roll a fair die twice and obtain two numbers X1= result of the first roll and X2= result of the second roll. Given that
I know X1+X2=7, what is the probability that X1=4 or X2=4?
Question 3a:
Consider a family that has two children. We are interested in the children's genders. Our sample space is
S={(G,G),(G,B),(B,G),(B,B)}. Also assume that all four possible outcomes are equally likely.
(a) What is the probability that both children are girls given that the first child is a girl?
Question 3b:
(b) We ask the father: "Do you have at least one daughter?" He responds "Yes!" Given this extra information, what is the
probability that both children are girls? In other words, what is the probability that both children are girls given that we
know at least one of them is a girl?
Examples
Question 4:
In a factory there are 100 units of a certain product, 5 of which are defective. We pick three units from the 100 units at
random. What is the probability that none of them are defective?
Question 5:
A bag contains red and blue marbles. Two marbles are drawn without replacement. The probability of
selecting a red marble and then a blue marble is 0.28. Probability of selecting a red marble on the first draw
is 0.5. What is the probability of selecting a blue marble, given that the first marble drawn was red?
Question 6:
What is the probability that the total of two dice will be greater than 9, given that the first dice shows a 5?
Question 7:
Out of 50 people surveyed in a study, 35 smoke in which there are 20 males. What is the probability that if the person
surveyed is a smoker then he is a male?
Question 8:
The probability of raining on Sunday is 0.07. If today is Sunday then find the probability of rain today.
Question 9:
The Venn diagram shows the number of students studying Biology and Chemistry. What is the probability of a student
studying Biology if they are also studying Chemistry?
Question 10:
The Venn diagram shows students that are studying a language. What is the probability of a student studying three
languages, given that they are studying at least two?
Question 11:
The given table shows the data of 10 point holders in a given class of 30. Find the probability that the student getting 10
points is a girl.
Question 12:
Henry turns up at school either late or on time. He is then either shouted at or not. The probability that he turns up late
is 0.4. If he turns up late, the probability that he is shouted at 0.7. If he turns up on time, the probability that he is still
shouted at for no particular reason is 0.2. You hear Henry being shouted at. What is the probability that he was late?
Question 13:
What is the probability that the card draw from a deck of 52 cards is an ace given that the card is red?
Question 14:
I have three bags that each contain 100 marbles:
Bag 1 has 75 red and 25 blue marbles;
Bag 2 has 60 red and 40 blue marbles;
Bag 3 has 45 red and 55 blue marbles.
I choose one of the bags at random and then pick a marble from the chosen bag, also at random. What is the probability
that the chosen marble is red?
Question 15:
In the experiment described in the previous problem, assume that we observe that the chosen marble is red. What is the
probability that bag 1 was chosen?