PROBABILITY OF THE UNION OF

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE EVENTS

When two events (call them ‘’A’’ and ‘’B’’) are
Mutually Exclusive it is impossible for them to
happen together:
P (A and B) = 0
‘’The probability of A and B together equals 0
(impossible)”
The probability of A or B is the sum of the
individual probabilities:
P(A U B) = P(A) + P(B)
Example 1.What is the probability
of drawing a queen or a king on an
ordinary deck of cards?

Example 2. A bag contains 7

white balls, 11 orange balls, and
12 red balls. If a ball is draw, find
the probability that it is a white
or a red ball?
Example 3: A card is drawn at random
from a 52-deck of card. Find the
probability of getting:

a. a king or an ace?________
b. a number card or an ace?________
c. a black card or a diamond?________
d. a red card or a club?_______
e. a king or an odd number?______
THE PROBABILITY OF THE UNION OF
NON-MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE EVENTS

The probability of the union of two events

A and B (written as P(A U B) or P(A or B)
is equal to the sum of the probability of
event A [P(A)] and the probability of event
B [P(B)] minus the probability of events A
and B occurring together [P(AՈB)].
In symbols, P(AUB) = P(A) + P(B) – P(AՈB)
Ex 4. If a card is drawn from an ordinary
deck of 52 cards, find the probability of
getting a heart or a face card?
Ex 5. A card is drawn at random from 52-deck
of card. Find the probability of getting
a. A number 3 or a heart?
b. A spade or a jack?
c. A black card or a 10 of spades?
d. A face card or a diamond
e. A queen or a spade.
Ex 6. What is the probability that a
number selected at random from the first
50 positive integers is exactly divisible
by 3 or 4?
Ex. 7. In a certain city, 60% of the
residents watching either ABS-CBN or
GMA on the television. Thirty percent of
them are watching ABS-CBN. Forty
percent of them are watching GMA.
What percentage of the residents are
watching both channels?