Name: Sarini Varma

AP Statistics Handout: Lesson 5.4

Topics: successive independent events, “at least one,” sampling w/o replacement

Lesson 5.4 Guided Notes

Successive Independent Events
Successive: Events are successive if one happens after the other (i.e. a repeated process)

Independent: Events are independent if knowing the outcome of one event doesn’t change
the probability of another event.

Example 1: What is the probability of getting “heads” 5x in a row?

Since the probabilities don’t change , you don’t need a tree diagram!
Example 2: A free throw is a penalty shot in basketball. One of the NBA’s best free throw shooters is
Stephen Curry. He makes 90.6% of the free throws he attempts. Assume each free throw attempt is
independent. What is the probability he makes 6 free throws in a row?

(0.906)6 = 55.3%

Example 3: Stephen Curry is fouled in many 3-point situations, so he often takes 3

free throws at a time. When he takes 3 free throws, what is the probability he makes
the first two but misses the last one?

1 – 0.906 = 0.094

0.906 x 0.906 x 0.094 = 0.077

= 7.7%

Material adapted from the Skew The Script curriculum (skewthescript.org)

Lessons made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0)
 2

“At Least One” Scenarios

Example: Stephen Curry makes 90.6% of the free throws he attempts. Assume each of his free throw
attempts are independent. What is the probability he makes at least one of his next 4 free throws?

1 – (0.094)4 = 0.99992
99.992%

“At least one” scenarios: When asked to find the probability of “at least one” occurrence of a successive
independent event, take the complement of the event that none occur.

P(at least one) = 1 – P(none)

Sampling Without Replacement

Example: You have a jar with 12 blue marbles and 8 red marbles. Imagine you sample marbles without
replacement. What is the probability of drawing the following: blue, then red, then blue?

12/20 x 8/19 x 11/18 = 0.154

Lesson 5.4 Discussion

Testing Kobe’s “Hot Hand”
The “hot hand” theory: When a player starts to make many shots in a row, the have a “hot hand” –
their probability of making shots is higher than normal.
 Your shots are not independent . Your current shot
probability depends on your previous shots.

a) Let’s assume the “hot hand” doesn’t exist. Each shot has an
equal and independent probability of going in (44.7%). What is
the probability of Kobe making an insane 8 shots in a row?

(0.447)8 = 0.00159

0.159%
Kobe’s 3 rd quarter during his 81-point game
b) In his career, Kobe took 30,697 shots. Given this information and the probability of an 8-shot streak
(calculated above), what is the expected number of times Kobe would get an 8-shot streak by chance?

30 697 – 7 = 30690
0.00159 x 30 690 = 48.8

Material adapted from the Skew The Script curriculum (skewthescript.org)

Lessons made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0)
 *Special thanks to Matt DiSorbo for
The actual number* of 8-shot streaks Kobe had in his career: 47 help with data collection and analysis

Discussion Question: Is this enough to disprove the “hot hand” theory? If yes, how so? If not, how else
could you test the theory?

You could test with different players who aren’t as good of players as Kobe was and see the different probabilities
of them getting a 8 shot streak and see whether it was higher than expected due to hot hands or whether it was as
expected

Lesson 5.4 Practice

Teachers: provide exercises from your AP Stats textbook (or other resources) about the content covered
in this lesson. This lesson matches with the following sections of the most widely-used AP Stats
textbooks:

 The Practice of Statistics (AP Edition), 4th-6th editions: section 5.3

 Stats: Modeling the World (AP Edition), 4th/5th editions: ch 14, 3rd edition: ch 15
 Statistics: Learning from Data (AP Edition), 2nd edition: section 5.4
 Advanced High School Statistics, section 3.2