PROBABILITY

LECTURE GOALS
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:

• Apply basic rules of probability

• Apply the addition rule to solve problem

• Apply conditional probability formula to solve problems.

An Experiment and Its Sample Space

Experiment Experiment Outcomes

Toss a coin Head, tail
Inspection a part Defective, non-defective
Roll a die 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Play a football game Win, lose, tie
 BASIC RULES OF PROBABILITY

• If A is an event, the probability that it occurs is

denoted by P(A).
0 ≤ P(A) ≤ 1
• The probability (or chance) that an event A occurs
is the proportion of possible outcomes in the
sample that yield the event A:
Number of outcomes that yield event A
P  A 
Total number of possible outcomes
Mutually Exclusive Events

Two
Two events
events are
are said
said to
to be
be mutually
mutually exclusive
exclusive ifif the
the
events
events have
have no
no sample
sample points
points in
in common.
common.

Two
Two events
events are
are mutually
mutually exclusive
exclusive if,
if, when
when one
one event
event
occurs,
occurs, the
the other
other cannot
cannot occur.
occur.

Sample
Event A Event B Space S
Conditional Probability

The probability of an event given that another event

has occurred is called a conditional probability.

The conditional probability of A given B is denoted

by P(A|B).

A conditional probability is computed as follows :

P( A  B)
P( A|B) 
P( B)
Independent Events

If
If the
the probability
probability ofof event A is
event A is not
not changed
changed by
by the
the
existence
existence ofof event B, we
event B, we would
would say
say that
that events
events AA
and
and BB are
are independent.
independent.

Two
Two events A and
events A and BB are
are independent
independent if:
if:

P(A|B) == P(A)
P(A|B) P(A) or P(B|A) == P(B)
P(B|A) P(B)
Example 1
A survey of a sample of business students resulted in the following information
regarding the genders of the individuals and their selected major.

Selected Major
Gender Management Marketing Others Total
Male 40 10 50 100

Female 30 20 50 100

Total 70 30 100 200

a. What is the probability of selecting an individual who is majoring in Marketing? P(Marketing) =

30/200
b. What is the probability of selecting an individual who is majoring in Management, given that the person is
female? 30
P(Management|Female) =
100
c. Given that a person is male, what is the probability that he is majoring in Management?
40
P(Management|M ale) 
100

d. What is the probability of selecting a male individual? P(Male) = 100/200

 Assume you have applied for two scholarships, a Merit scholarship (M) and an Athletic
scholarship (A). The probability that you receive an Athletic scholarship is 0.18. The
probability of receiving both scholarships is 0.11. The probability of getting at least one of the
scholarships is 0.3.
a. What is the probability that you will receive a Merit scholarship?
b. Are events A and M mutually exclusive? Why or why not? Explain.
c. What is the probability of receiving the Athletic scholarship given that
you have been awarded the Merit scholarship?
a.
b. A and M are not mutually exclusive because (not equal to 0).

c.
Example 3:
As a company manager for Claimstat Corporation there is a 0.40 probability that
you will be promoted this year. There is a 0.72 probability that you will get a
promotion, a raise, or both. The probability of getting a promotion and a raise is
0.25.

a. What is the probability that you will get a raise?

b. Are these two events mutually exclusive? Explain using probabilities.
 a.

b. K and R are not mutually exclusive because (not equal to 0).

Example 4:
A bank has the following data on the gender and marital status of 200 customers.

Male Female Total

Single 20 30 50
Married 100 50 150
Total 120 80 200

a. What is the probability of finding a single female customer?

P (Sin gle  Female)  30 / 200

b. If a customer is female, what is the probability that she is single?

P(Single | Female) = 30/80
c. What percentage of customers is single? P(Single) = 50/200
d. Are gender and marital status mutually exclusive? No.
e. Is marital status independent of gender?
Let’s consider the events Single and Female:
P(Single | Female) = 30/80, P(Single) = 50/200
Since P(Single | Female) ≠ P(Single), so the marital status is NOT
independent of gender.