TALLER DE PROBABILIDAD

1a. [5 marks]
Jar A contains three red marbles and five green marbles. Two marbles are drawn from the jar, one after
the other, without replacement.
Find the probability that
(i) none of the marbles are green;
(ii) exactly one marble is green.
1b. [3 marks]
Find the expected number of green marbles drawn from the jar.
1c. [2 marks]
Jar B contains six red marbles and two green marbles. A fair six-sided die is tossed. If the score is or ,
a marble is drawn from jar A. Otherwise, a marble is drawn from jar B.
(i) Write down the probability that the marble is drawn from jar B.
(ii) Given that the marble was drawn from jar B, write down the probability that it is red.
1d. [6 marks]
Given that the marble is red, find the probability that it was drawn from jar A.

2a. [4 marks]
A running club organizes a race to select girls to represent the club in a competition.
The times taken by the group of girls to complete the race are shown in the table below.

Find the value of and of .

2b. [3 marks]
A girl is chosen at random.
(i) Find the probability that the time she takes is less than minutes.
(ii) Find the probability that the time she takes is at least minutes.
2c. [4 marks]
A girl is selected for the competition if she takes less than minutes to complete the race.
Given that of the girls are not selected,
(i) find the number of girls who are not selected;
(ii) find .

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2d. [4 marks]
Girls who are not selected, but took less than minutes to complete the race, are allowed another
chance to be selected. The new times taken by these girls are shown in the cumulative frequency
diagram below.

(i) Write down the number of girls who

were allowed another chance.
(ii) Find the percentage of the whole
group who were selected.

3a. [3 marks]

Bill and Andrea play two games of tennis. The probability that Bill wins the first game is .

If Bill wins the first game, the probability that he wins the second game is .

If Bill loses the first game, the probability that he wins the second game is .
Copy and complete the following tree diagram. (Do not write on this page.)

3b. [2 marks]
Find the probability that Bill wins the first game and Andrea wins the second game.
3c. [4 marks]
Find the probability that Bill wins at least one game.
3d. [5 marks]
Given that Bill wins at least one game, find the probability that he wins both games.

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4a. [2 marks]
Let and be independent events, where and .
Find .
4b. [2 marks]
Find .
4c. [1 mark]
On the following Venn diagram, shade the region that represents .

4d. [2 marks]
Find .

5a. [2 marks]
Two events and are such that and .
Given that and are mutually exclusive, find .
5b. [4 marks]
Given that and are independent, find .

6a. [4 marks]
Samantha goes to school five days a week. When it rains, the probability that she goes to school by bus
is 0.5. When it does not rain, the probability that she goes to school by bus is 0.3. The probability that it
rains on any given day is 0.2.
On a randomly selected school day, find the probability that Samantha goes to school by bus.
6b. [3 marks]
Given that Samantha went to school by bus on Monday, find the probability that it was raining.
6c. [2 marks]
In a randomly chosen school week, find the probability that Samantha goes to school by bus on exactly
three days.
6d. [5 marks]
After school days, the probability that Samantha goes to school by bus at least once is greater than
. Find the smallest value of .

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7a. [2 marks]
Adam travels to school by car ( ) or by bicycle ( ). On any particular day he is equally likely to travel
by car or by bicycle.

The probability of being late ( ) for school is if he travels by car.

The probability of being late for school is if he travels by bicycle.

This information is represented by the following tree diagram.

Find the value of .

7b. [2 marks]
Find the probability that Adam will travel by car and be late for school.
7c. [4 marks]
Find the probability that Adam will be late for school.
7d. [3 marks]
Given that Adam is late for school, find the probability that he travelled
by car.
7e. [4 marks]
Adam will go to school three times next week.
Find the probability that Adam will be late exactly once.

8a. [2 marks]

Let and be independent events, with and , where .

Write down an expression for in terms of .
8b. [3 marks]
Find .

9a. [2 marks]
At a large school, students are required to learn at least one language, Spanish or French. It is known
that of the students learn Spanish, and learn French.
Find the percentage of students who learn both Spanish and French.
9b. [2 marks]
At a large school, students are required to learn at least one language, Spanish or French. It is known
that of the students learn Spanish, and learn French.
Find the percentage of students who learn Spanish, but not French.
9c. [5 marks]

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 At a large school, students are required to learn at least one language, Spanish or French. It is known
that of the students learn Spanish, and learn French.
At this school, of the students are girls, and of the girls learn Spanish.
A student is chosen at random. Let G be the event that the student is a girl, and let S be the event that
the student learns Spanish.
(i) Find .
(ii) Show that G and S are not independent.
9d. [6 marks]
At a large school, students are required to learn at least one language, Spanish or French. It is known
that of the students learn Spanish, and learn French.
At this school, of the students are girls, and of the girls learn Spanish.
A boy is chosen at random. Find the probability that he learns Spanish.

10a. [5 marks]
Bag A contains three white balls and four red balls. Two balls are chosen at random without
replacement.
(i) Copy and complete the following tree diagram.

(ii) Find the probability that two white balls are chosen.

10b. [5 marks]
Bag A contains three white balls and four red balls. Two balls are chosen at random without
replacement.
Bag B contains four white balls and three red balls. When two balls are chosen at random without

replacement from bag B, the probability that they are both white is .
A standard die is rolled. If 1 or 2 is obtained, two balls are chosen without replacement from bag A,
otherwise they are chosen from bag B.
Find the probability that the two balls are white.
10c. [4 marks]
Bag A contains three white balls and four red balls. Two balls are chosen at random without
replacement.

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 Bag B contains four white balls and three red balls. When two balls are chosen at random without

replacement from bag B, the probability that they are both white is .
A standard die is rolled. If 1 or 2 is obtained, two balls are chosen without replacement from bag A,
otherwise they are chosen from bag B.
Given that both balls are white, find the probability that they were chosen from bag A.

11a. [1 mark]
Events A and B are such that , and .

The values q , r , s and t represent probabilities.

Write down the value of t .

11b. [3 marks]
(i) Show that .
(ii) Write down the value of q and of s .
11c. [3 marks]
(i) Write down .
(ii) Find .

12a. [1 mark]
A box contains six red marbles and two blue marbles. Anna selects a marble from the box. She replaces
the marble and then selects a second marble.
Write down the probability that the first marble Anna selects is red.
12b. [2 marks]
Find the probability that Anna selects two red marbles.
12c. [3 marks]
Find the probability that one marble is red and one marble is blue.

13a. [4 marks]

Let , where .
Find the values of k such that has two equal roots.
13b. [4 marks]
Each value of k is equally likely for . Find the probability that has no roots.
14a. [1 mark]
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 The diagram below shows the probabilities for events A and B , with .

Write down the value of p .

14b. [3 marks]
Find .
14c. [3 marks]
Find .

15a. [3 marks]
Consider the events A and B, where , and .
The Venn diagram below shows the events A and B, and the probabilities p, q and r.

Write down the value of

(i) p ;
(ii) q ;
(iii) r.
15b. [2 marks]
Find the value of .
15c. [1 mark]
Hence, or otherwise, show that the events A and B are not independent.

16a. [4 marks]

José travels to school on a bus. On any day, the probability that José will miss the bus is .

If he misses his bus, the probability that he will be late for school is .

If he does not miss his bus, the probability that he will be late is .
Let E be the event “he misses his bus” and F the event “he is late for school”.
The information above is shown on the following tree diagram.

Find
(i) ;

(ii) .
16b. [5 marks]

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 Find the probability that
(i) José misses his bus and is not late for school;
(ii) José missed his bus, given that he is late for school.
16c. [3 marks]
The cost for each day that José catches the bus is 3 euros. José goes to school on Monday and Tuesday.
Copy and complete the probability distribution table.

16d. [2 marks]
The cost for each day that José catches the bus is 3 euros. José goes to school on Monday and Tuesday.
Find the expected cost for José for both days.

17a. [3 marks]
In a class of 100 boys, 55 boys play football and 75 boys play rugby. Each boy must play at least one
sport from football and rugby.
(i) Find the number of boys who play both sports.
(ii) Write down the number of boys who play only rugby.
17b. [4 marks]
One boy is selected at random.
(i) Find the probability that he plays only one sport.
(ii) Given that the boy selected plays only one sport, find the probability that he plays rugby.
17c. [2 marks]
Let A be the event that a boy plays football and B be the event that a boy plays rugby.
Explain why A and B are not mutually exclusive.
17d. [3 marks]
Show that A and B are not independent.

18a. [3 marks]
Jan plays a game where she tosses two fair six-sided dice. She wins a prize if the sum of her scores is 5.
Jan tosses the two dice once. Find the probability that she wins a prize.
18b. [2 marks]
Jan tosses the two dice 8 times. Find the probability that she wins 3 prizes.

19a. [5 marks]
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 In a group of 16 students, 12 take art and 8 take music. One student takes neither art nor music. The
Venn diagram below shows the events art and music. The values p , q , r and s represent numbers of
students.

(i) Write down the value of s .

(ii) Find the value of q .
(iii) Write down the value of p and of r .

19b. [4 marks]
(i) A student is selected at random. Given that the student takes music, write down the probability the
student takes art.
(ii) Hence, show that taking music and taking art are not independent events.
19c. [4 marks]
Two students are selected at random, one after the other. Find the probability that the first student
takes only music and the second student takes only art.

20a. [3 marks]
A company uses two machines, A and B, to make boxes. Machine A makes of the boxes.
of the boxes made by machine A pass inspection.
of the boxes made by machine B pass inspection.
A box is selected at random.
Find the probability that it passes inspection.
20b. [4 marks]
The company would like the probability that a box passes inspection to be 0.87.
Find the percentage of boxes that should be made by machine B to achieve this.

21a. [4 marks]
The Venn diagram below shows events A and B where , and
. The values m , n , p and q are probabilities.

(i) Write down the value of n .

(ii) Find the value of m , of p , and of q
21b. [2 marks]

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 Find .

22a. [3 marks]
Two fair 4-sided dice, one red and one green, are thrown. For each die, the faces are labelled 1, 2, 3, 4.
The score for each die is the number which lands face down.
List the pairs of scores that give a sum of 6.
22b. [3 marks]
The probability distribution for the sum of the scores on the two dice is shown below.

Find the value of p , of q , and of r .

22c. [6 marks]
Fred plays a game. He throws two fair 4-sided dice four times. He wins a prize if the sum is 5 on three
or more throws.
Find the probability that Fred wins a prize.
23a. [1 mark]
Let A and B be independent events, where and .
Write down an expression for .
23b. [4 marks]
Given that ,
(i) find x ;
(ii) find .
23c. [1 mark]
Hence, explain why A and B are not mutually exclusive.

24a. [4 marks]
There are 20 students in a classroom. Each student plays only one sport. The table below gives their
sport and gender.

One student is selected at random.

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 (i) Calculate the probability that the student is a male or is a tennis player.
(ii) Given that the student selected is female, calculate the probability that the student does not play
football.
24b. [3 marks]
Two students are selected at random. Calculate the probability that neither student plays football.

25. [7 marks]
Consider the independent events A and B . Given that , and , find
.

26a. [1 mark]
The letters of the word PROBABILITY are written on 11 cards as shown below.

Two cards are drawn at random without replacement.

Let A be the event the first card drawn is the letter A.
Let B be the event the second card drawn is the letter B.
Find .
26b. [2 marks]
Find .
26c. [3 marks]
Find .

27a. [6 marks]
Two standard six-sided dice are tossed. A diagram representing the sample space is shown below.

Let be the sum of the scores on the two dice.

(i) Find .

(ii) Find .

(iii) Find .

27b. [8 marks]
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 Elena plays a game where she tosses two dice.
If the sum is 6, she wins 3 points.
If the sum is greater than 6, she wins 1 point.
If the sum is less than 6, she loses k points.
Find the value of k for which the game is fair.

28a. [2 marks]
A four-sided die has three blue faces and one red face. The die is rolled.
Let B be the event a blue face lands down, and R be the event a red face lands down.
Write down
(i) P(B);(ii) P(R).
28b. [2 marks]
If the blue face lands down, the die is not rolled again. If the red face lands down, the die is rolled once
again. This is represented by the following tree diagram, where p, s, t are probabilities.

Find the value of p, of s and of t.

28c. [3 marks]
Guiseppi plays a game where he rolls the die. If a blue face lands down, he scores 2 and is finished. If the
red face lands down, he scores 1 and rolls one more time. Let X be the total score obtained.

(i) Show that .(ii) Find .

28d. [5 marks]
(i) Construct a probability distribution table for X.
(ii) Calculate the expected value of X.
28e. [4 marks]
If the total score is 3, Guiseppi wins . If the total score is 2, Guiseppi gets nothing.
Guiseppi plays the game twice. Find the probability that he wins exactly .

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