PROBABILITY AND

COUNTING
TECHNIQUES
Marnielle Salig
Lecturer
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF
COUNTING
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF COUNTING

The Fundamental counting principle or basic principle of counting

is a method or a rule used to calculate the total number of outcomes
when two or more events are occurring.
This principle states that the total number of outcomes of two or
more independent events is the product of the number of outcomes of
each individual event.
For example, a child choosing among six flavors of ice creams, with 3
variety of cones will have: 6x3 = 18 different choices of ice creams.
 FUNDAMENTAL COUNTING PRINCIPLE
IN REAL LIFE

 A boy has 4 T-shirts and 3 pants. Find the total number of possible
outfits the boy has.

 Consider an example where a fair die is rolled and a card is drawn

from a deck. What is the total number of outcomes in this case.
EXAMPLE:

A coin is tossed and a die is rolled. Find the number of

outcomes for the sequence of events.
Solution: A coin has 2 faces and a die has 6 faces, then the
number of possible outcomes is:
 (2).(6)=12
“ If an operation can be performed in ways
and if for each of these a second operation
  be performed in ways, then the two
can
operations can be performed together in
ways.

- Fundamental Principle of Counting

”
A tree diagram is a systematic way of
listing all outcomes.
EXAMPLE:
1. A student has to enroll in Stat 2, Acctng 101, and Math 1.
If there are 2 sections in Stat 2 (A & G), 2 sections in Acctng
101 (I & E) and 1 section in Math 1 (J), how many possible
schedules can he make, assuming there is no conflict of
schedules?

2. How many 3-digit numbers can be formed from the digits

3, 4, 8, and 9 if:
a.) no digits is repeated
b.) repetition of digits is allowed
c.) repetition of digits is allowed and the number is
even.
PERMUTATION
Definition:
A permutation is any arrangement of n objects in specific order.

 EXAMPLE:
Suppose a business owner has a choice of 5 locations in which to establish his
business. He decides to rank only top 3 of the 5 locations. How many different
possibilities can he rank.

 Solution: The first choice is 5, the second choice is 4, and the third
choice is 3. Therefore we have the possibilities equal to:

5 x 4 x 3 = 60
Some Properties of Permutation
Property
   1:
The number of permutations of distinct objects is
Example 1:
In how many ways can Vic, Joey, Luz and Ann be seated in a row of 4
chairs?

 Solution:
𝒏! = 4
Example 1.3:
a.) How many distinct permutations can be made from
the letters of the word ‘FRIEND’?
b.) How many of these permutations start with the letter
‘F’?
Some Properties of Permutation
  
Property 2:
The number of permutations of distinct objects taken at a time is:

n Pr

Example 2.1:
If three prizes, the first, second and the third prize will be
awarded from among 10 equally qualified students, in how many
ways can this be done if only one set of prizes will be won?

Example 2.2: ASSIGNMENT!

A department has 30 professors. Four need to be selected for a
committee. The committee has a chair, a vice chair, a secretary, and
a fourth member without special privileges or duties. In how many
ways can this committee be chosen?
Some Properties of Permutation
Property
   3:
The number of distinct permutations of things of which are of one kind (or
same kind), of a second kind, …., of the kind is given by:

Example 3:
How many different ways can 3 red, 4 yellow, and 2 blue bulbs be
arranged in a string of Christmas tree lights with 9 sockets.
Some Properties of Permutation
Property
   4:
The number of permutations of distinct objects arranged in a circle is:

Example 4:
In how many ways can 6 different varieties of gumamela be
planted in a circle?

 Solution:
There are different species of gumamela. The number of permutation is:
COMBINATION
Definition:

 A selection of distinct objects without regard to order is called a

combination.
Examples:

1. How many different combinations can be formed from the

letters a, b, and c if 2 letters are taken at a time?
2. From 4 Statisticians and 3 Accountants find the number of
committees of size 3 that can be formed with 2 Statisticians
and 1 Accountant.
3. (ASSIGNMENT) In a hospital, there are 8 nurses and 4 doctors.
A committee of 3 nurses and 2 doctors is to be chosen. How
many different possibilities are there?
 Difference of Permutation and Combination

 Permutation: Permutation can simply be defined as the several ways of

arranging few or all members within a specific order. It is the process of
legibly arranging from chaos. This is what is termed as a Permutation.

 Combination: The combination is a process of selecting the objects or

items from a set or the collection of objects, such that (unlike
permutations) the order of selection of objects does not matter. It
refers to the combination of N things taken from a group of K at a time
without repetition.
Combination, on the other hand, can simply be defined as the method
of selecting a group by taking up some or all members of a set. There is
no particular order that is used to follow while combining elements of a
set.
Remarks:
1. Use permutations if a problem calls for the number of
arrangements of objects and different orders are to be
counted.

2. Use combinations if a problem calls for the number of

ways of selecting objects and the order of selection is not
to be counted.
 ANSWER!
1. How many 3 letter “words” (that includes nonsense words)
can you create from the 26 letters of the alphabet if there is
no repetition of letters?
2. A television news director wishes to use 3 news stories of an
evening show. One story will be the lead story, one will be
the second story, and the last will be a closing story. If he
has a total of 10 stories to choose from. How many possible
ways can the program are set up.
3. How many ways can 2 vacant positions for the President and
Vice President, be filled from among 6 equally-qualified
company officials?
4. How many combinations of 6 objects are there, taken 3 at a
time.
STATISTICAL EXPERIMENTS
Statistical experiments have the following characteristics:
a.) A listing of all outcomes is possible or at least
conceivable.
b.) Any outcome cannot be predicted with certainty.
Definition of Terms:

 Sample Space - a set of possible outcomes of a statistical

experiment is called a Sample Space and is denoted by S. A sample
space is chosen according to our point of interest in the experiment.
 Point/Element of S – Each sample or outcome in a sample space.
 Tree Diagram – can also be defined as a systematic way of listing
the elements in the sample space.
 Event – is a subset of a sample space and is denoted by capital
letters like A, B, …., Z. It can either be simple or compound.
 Simple Event – An event containing only one element of the sample
space.
 Compound Event – Is one that can be expressed as the union of simple
events.
Definition of Terms:

 Null/Empty Space – is a set that contains no element.

 Mutually Exclusive Events – If two events can be represented by
two sets that do not have common elements. Mutually exclusive
events cannot happen at the same time.
 Equally Likely Events – If two events have the same number of
elements, as subsets of the same sample space. Equally like events
have the same probability of occurring.
 Independent Events – Two events A and B are independent if
the outcome of one does not affect the outcome of the other.
  
NOTE:
 The union of two events A and B, written as , is the set whose elements
are found in either A or B.

 The Intersection of two events, written as or just , is the set whose

elements are common to A and B. If AB is the null set, then A and B are
mutually exclusive.
EXAMPLE:

1. In a toss of a coin there are two possible outcomes, a head (H)

or a tail (T).
2. Construct a sample space for the experiment of tossing two
coins.
3. A student chosen at random from the 2nd year Accountancy
class of BLOCK D. What is the sample space S for this
experiment?
4. A student chosen at random from the 2nd year Accountancy
class of 35 students. What is the sample space S for this
experiment?
ANSWER!

1.   A two-stage experiment consists of tossing a coin



and followed by random drawing a letter from

Using a tree diagram, list all the elements of the
sample space S.
PROBABILITY
PROBABILITY

 is a term used to indicate the measure of one’s belief in the

occurrence of a future event.
 A probability is a number that reflects the chance or likelihood that a
particular event will occur.
 As a numerical measure of the chance that an event will occur, it is
convenient to assign a number between 0 to 1. If we are sure or
certain that the event will occur, we say that its probability is 100%
or 1. On the other hand, if we are sure that the event will not occur,
then we assign a 0% chance or a probability of 0.
The Classical Definition of Probability

   If
an experiment can result in any one of n(S) different
equally likely outcomes, and if exactly n(A) of this ways
correspond to event A, then the probability of event A is:

The notation means the cardinality of S or the number of

elements of the set S. In the same manner, is the number of
elements of the set A.
EXAMPLE:

1. What is the probability of drawing a king from a deck of

playing cards?
2. A die is rolled, find the probability of getting a 3.
3. If two diced are tossed, what is the probability that the
sum of the numbers is greater than 10?
Properties of Probability


1.  

2.

3.

4. where and are complementary events.

CONDITIONAL PROBABILITY
  

Where:
• P(A|B) – the conditional probability; the probability of event A occurring
given that event B has already occurred
• P(A ∩ B) – the joint probability of events A and B; the probability that
both events A and B occur
• P(B) – the probability of event B
EXAMPLE:
1. A family has 2 children. Given that one of the children is a boy, what is the
probability that the other child is also a boy?
2. (ASSIGNMENT) Two dies are thrown simultaneously and the sum of the numbers
obtained is found to be 7. What is the probability that the number 3 has appeared
at least once?
3. In the experiment of rolling a pair of dice, the elements of the sample space can be
listed (1,1)
as: (1,2) (1,3) (1,4) (1,5) (1,6)
(2,1) (2,2) (2,3) (2,4) (2,5) (2,6)
(3,1) (3,2) (3,3) (3,4) (3,5) (3,6)
(4,1) (4,2) (4,3) (4,4) (4,5) (4,6)
(5,1) (5,2) (5,3) (5,4) (5,5) (5,6)
(6,1) (6,2) (6,3) (6,4) (6,5) (6,6)

The sample space has 36 samples points, thus, n(S) = 36.

Consider now the event A that the sum of the dots is greater than 9.
Suppose there is another set B, which is the event that the sum of the dot is odd.
EXAMPLE:
4. Find the probability a student likes school given they are male.
5. Find the probability a student is female given they dislike school
SOME PROBABILITY RULES
1. General Addition Rule

  Let A and B be any two events, then

If two events are mutually exclusive, then

Thus, .
 𝑃( 𝐴 ∪ 𝐵)
 

𝑃 ( 𝐴∪𝐵 )=𝑃 ( 𝐴 )+ 𝑃 ( 𝐵) −𝑃(𝐴∩𝐵)

 
Are A and
B mutually
Exclusive?

YES

𝑃 ( 𝐴∪𝐵 )= 𝑃 ( 𝐴 )+ 𝑃(𝐵)
 
EXAMPLE:

1. Find the probability of drawing either an ace or king in a single

draw.
2. If we draw one card from a deck of 52 cards, what is the
probability that it will be a club or a face card?
3. Klaus is trying to choose where to go on vacation. His two
choices are: A = New Zealand and B = Alaska. Klaus can only
afford one vacation. The probability that he
chooses A is P(A)=0.6 and the probability that he
chooses B is P(B)=0.35.
What’s the probability that he chooses either New Zealand or
Alaska?
ASSIGNMENT:
 Carlos plays college soccer. He makes a goal 65% of the time he shoots.
Carlos is going to attempt two goals in a row in the next game. A = the event
Carlos is successful on his first attempt. P(A)=0.65. B= the event Carlos is
successful on his second attempt. P(B)=0.65. Carlos tends to shoot in streaks.
The probability that he makes the second goal GIVEN that he made the first
goal is 0.90.
1. What is the probability that he makes both goals?
2. What is the probability that Carlos makes either the first goal or the second
goal?
3. Are A and B independent?
4. Are A and B mutually exclusive?
1. Multiplication Rule

 If an experiment, the events A and B can both occur, then

P(AB) = P(A)*P(B/A)
where P(B/A) is the conditional probability that B occurs given A.

P(AB) = P(A) * P(B) if A and B are independent.

 𝑃( 𝐴 ∩ 𝐵)
 

𝑃 ( 𝐴∪𝐵 )= 𝑃 ( 𝐴 ) ∗P(B/A)
Are A and  
B
independe
nt?

YES

𝑃 ( 𝐴∩𝐵 )= 𝑃 ( 𝐴 ) ∗ 𝑃(𝐵)
 
EXAMPLE:
1. A box contain 5 balls wherein 3 are white and 2 are black. 2 balls are
drawn from a box successively, what is the probability that both balls
drawn are black?
a.) If the 2nd ball is drawn after replacing the 1st ball.
b.) If the 2nd ball is drawn without replacing the 1st ball.
2. (ASSIGNMENT) A class has 8 boys and 15 girls. If three students are
selected at random from the class, what is the probability that they are
all boys?
3. Suppose that we want to find out the probability of first drawing a green
marble and then a blue marble out of a bag of marbles.
Let’s say that there are 12 marbles total. 3 are green, 4 are blue, and 5 are red.
ASSIGNMENT:

ASSIGNMENT!
Exposure of a certain fruit fly population to an insecticide has produced 2
kinds of mutations. 20% have wing mutation, 15% have eye mutation and 5%
have both. A fly is selected at random.
a.) If it has the wing mutation, what is the probability that it also has the
eye mutation?
b.) If it has the eye mutation, what is the probability that it has also the
wing mutation?
c.) What is the probability that it has at least one of the mutations?
BAYE’S RULE
   Baye’s rule is an extension of the conditional probability and the general
rule of multiplication. To apply this rule, it is assumed that the sample space
can be partitioned into a sequence of events which are mutually exclusive
and exhaustive. If we denote these events as

These events are assumed to satisfy the following properties:

(The events are exhaustible)

(The events are mutually exclusive)

   Supposethat another event A is defined on the sample
space. Since the B’s are exhaustive, A must intersect with
one or more of the B’s. The Probability of the event can
be obtained using the formula:
/)

Which is known as the Theorem of Total Probability.

 Another event of interest is /A, the event that occurs
f=given that A already happened. From the definition of
conditional probability,

P(/A) =
 Replacingthe denominator by the right side of the Equation
of the Theorem of Total Probability yields
P(/A) =
Where i= 1, 2,….,n. This equation is called the Baye’s rule
of Baye’s Formula.
EXAMPLE:

1. There are two boxes. The first box contains 1 black marble and 3
white marbles and the second box contains 2 black marbles and 4
white marbles. A box is selected at random and a marble is drawn
from the selected box.
a.) What is the probability that the marble is black?
b.) Given that the marble is black, what is the probability that it
came from the second box?
c.) Given that the marble is white, what is the probability that it
came from the 1st box?
EXAMPLE:
 Imagine you are a financial analyst at an investment bank.
According to your research of publicly-traded companies, 60%
of the companies that increased their share price by more than
5% in the last three years replaced their CEOs during the
period.

At the same time, only 35% of the companies that did not
increase their share price by more than 5% in the same period
replaced their CEOs. Knowing that the probability that the
stock prices grow by more than 5% is 4%, find the probability
that the shares of a company that fires its CEO will increase by
more than 5%.
EXAMPLE:

A bag I contain 4 white and 6 black balls while another Bag II

contains 4 white and 3 black balls. One ball is drawn at
random from one of the bags, and it is found to be black.
Find the probability that it was drawn from Bag I.
SUMMARY:

Counting Techniques
 FPC
 Permutation (ordered arrangement)
 Combination (order does not matter)
Probability (chance)
 Addition rule
P(A or B)=P(A)+P(B)-P(A and B)
 Multiplication

P(A and B)=P(A)P(B|A)

 Conditional Probability
P(B|A)=P(A and B)/P(A)
Baye’s Rule