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STA116
Probability & Counting Rules
CHAPTER 2

2.1 Principle of Counting

 If a task is can be performed in n1 ways, and

for each of these a second task can be
performed in n2 ways, and for each of the
latter a third task can be performed in n3
ways, and for each of the latter a kth can be
performed in nk ways, then the entire
sequence of kth can be performed in
n1 ∙ n2 ∙ n3 ∙ … ∙ nk

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2.2 Permutation
 Any particular arrangement of r objects which
are selected from a set of n distinct object
 Permutation is ordered combination.
 The order of the arrangement is IMPORTANT.
 Example:
‐ The permutation of the trio Ali, Ah Seng and
Raju is DIFFERENT from Raju, Ah Seng and Ali.
‐ Arrangements of letter A and B can be written
as AB and BA.
 Permutations are picky!

2.2 Permutation

 Selection from the original set is

either
› selection with repetition (sampling
with replacement)
› selection without repetition
(sampling without replacement)

 The original set from which selections

are made may contain:
› Objects of entirely different kind
› Objects of which some are of the
same kind.
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2.2.1 Selection with repetition

 The number of permutations of r different objects

selected with repetition from a set of n different
objects is nr.

 Suppose an original set A is given as A={1,2,3}.

› How many 3‐digit numbers can possibly be
form from set A if repetition is allowed?

› How many 2‐digit numbers can possibly be

form from set A if repetition is allowed?

2.2.2 Selection without repetition

 Objects of entirely different kind
 The number of permutations of r different objects
selected without repetition from a set of n different
objects is
!
nPr = !

 Suppose an original set A is given as A={1,2,3}.

a) How many 3‐digit numbers can possibly be form from set
A if repetition is not allowed?
b) How many 2‐digit numbers can possibly be form from set
A if repetition is not allowed?

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Example:
 A doctor has 3 examination rooms. There are 6
patients in the waiting room. In how many different
ways can the patients be assigned to the
examination room?
 How many 4‐digit numbers can be formed from the
set of numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 if repetitions
are not allowed?
 How many 4‐digit numbers can be formed from the
set of numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 if repetitions
are not allowed and the first digit of that number
must be a nonzero digit?
 How many 4‐digit numbers greater than 4000 can
be formed from the set of numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9 if repetitions are not allowed?

2.2.3 Selection without repetition

Objects of which some are of the same kind

‐ If given n objects of which p are alike, q are alike and
r are alike, the number of permutations can be
computed by using the following formula.

n!
p! q! r!

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Example:
 How many ways can the alphabets in the word
› “MATHEMATICS”
› “STATISTICS”
be arranged?

 The letters in the word “Millennium” are to be arranged in a

row. Find
‐ the total number of arrangement
‐ the number of arrangement in which the letter starts with an ‘i”

 The letters in the word SUCCESS are to be arranged in a row.

Find
‐ the total number of arrangements
‐ The number of arrangements in which the letter starts with ‘C’.

2.2.4 Permutations for Items

Always Together
Always Together: Frequently, certain items must always be
kept together.
 To do these questions,
1) Treat the objects together as 1, and determine the
number of arrangements.
2) For each group that is together, find the number of
“internal” arrangements.
3) Multiply these numbers to get the total possible
arrangements.

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Example:
1) How many arrangements of the word
ACTIVE are there if C & E must always be
together?
2) How any arrangements of the word Kitchen
exist if K and N must always be together?
3) Seven math students (Amy, Brady,
Christopher, Dylan, Ellie, Frank, Gina) are
going to stand in a line. How many ways can
they stand if:
a) the girls must stay together?
b) Brady and Dylan must stay together?

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2.2.5 Permutations for Items

Never Together
Never Together: If certain items must be kept apart, you
will need to figure out how many possible positions the
separate items can occupy.

Example:
1) How many arrangements of the word active are there
if C and E must never be together?
2) How many arrangements of the word DAUGHTER are
there if none of the vowels can never be together?

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2.3 Combination
 Combination is a subset of elements (objects)
selected from an original set.

 Order arrangement is not important.

 {1,2} and {2,1} are two different arrangement and

we considered as two permutations. However, the
subsets are considered identical and are treated as
one combination.

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2.3 Combination
 The number of combinations of r different objects
selected without repetition from a set of n
different object is

!
nCr = ! !
 Example:
‐ How many ways can a student choose four out of
6 questions in an examination?
‐ In UiTMCS there are five good tennis players. How
many different doubles can be formed from these
five players?
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Example:
 A group of 4 project members are to be selected from 3 girls
and 5 boys. How many different groups can be formed if
‐ there is no restriction,
‐ exactly 1 girl and 3 boys are selected,
‐ at most 2 girls are selected, and
‐ at least 3 boys are selected.

 A five‐member parent‐Teacher Committee of a school is to

be formed from six parents, two teachers and the school
principal. How many different committees can be formed if
‐ the principal must be one of the member,
‐ exactly four parents are in the committee, and
‐ there are not more than 4 parents in the committee.

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Permutation /
combination

Order /
arrangement
important ?

Yes No

Permutation Combination
nP nC
r r

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Objects selected
with repetition

Yes No

Objects of Objects of which

nr entirely some are of the
different kind same kind

! n!
nPr =
! p! q! r! …

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2.4 What is probability?

 Probability is an analysis of the likelihood that

an event will happen.
 About chance, opportunity.
 Probability is always between 0 and 1.
 The higher the probability, the more certain
event will occur.

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2.4 Basic Concepts

 Experiment/Trial
‐ an action where the result is uncertain
‐ e.g. tossing a coin, throwing dice

 Sample space
‐ all the possible outcomes of an experiment
‐ e.g. {H, T} for coin experiment, {1,2,3,4,5,6} for
dice experiment

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2.4 Basic Concepts

 Sample points
‐ just one of the possible outcomes

 Events
‐ a single result of an experiment
‐ e.g. getting a tail from tossing a coin, rolling no.
‘5’, etc
‐ an event can be one or more of the possible
outcomes e.g. rolling an even number

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2.4 Basic Concepts

 Simple event – a single outcome of an experiment

 Compound event ‐ collection of simple events

 Probability of A = n(A)
n(S)

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2.4 Basic Concepts

 Experiment: Observe the upper face of a coin
Sample space: 1) Observe a head 2) Observe a tail
‐ represented in a set containing 2 sample points i.e.
S = {H,T}

 Experiment: Observe the upper face of two coins

Sample space: 1) Observe HH 2) Observe TT
3) Observe TH 4) Observe HT
‐ represented in a set containing 4 sample points i.e.
S = {HH, TT, TH, HT}

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2.4.1 Probability Theorem

 Probability Theorems
 P(S) = 1, Probability of an event that is certain
to happen is 1.
 P() = 0, Probability of an event that is
certain not to be happen is 1
 0P(A) 1
 P(A’) = 1 – P(A)

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2.4.2 Marginal, joint and

conditional probabilities
 Suppose A and B are any two events of an
experiment. P(A) and P(B) are such that

‐ P(A) = probability that event A occurs

regardless of whether or not event B
occurs.
‐ P(B) = Probability that event B occurs
regardless of whether or not event A
occurs.

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 Marginal probability ‐ the probability that an event will

occur regardless of whether or not another event
occurs.
› E.g. P(A), P(B), P(C), etc.

 Joint probability ‐ the probability that two or more

events will occur at the same time.
› E.g. P(A  B)

 Conditional probability ‐ the probability of an event

occurring given that another event has occurred.
› E.g. Conditional probability of A given B
P(A|B) =

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Example:

1) If you roll a die, what is the probability of getting

a) the number 5,
b) a number less than 4?

2) There are 2 blue marbles and three red marbles in

a bag. A marble is drawn at random from the bag.
What is the probability that the marble is red?

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Example:
 Probability of Permutation & Combination Simple
Cases

1) A five‐digit number is to be formed from the digits 2, 3,

5, 7 and 9 and repetitions are not allowed.
What is the probability that the number is an even
number? (find the arrangement first, then probability)

2) A team of 4 students is to be selected from 3 male and 6

female students. Find the probability that
‐ the team will consist 2 male and 2 female students.
‐ the team will consist at least 2 male students.

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2.4.3 Probability of Union

Events (The Additional
Rule)
 Mutually exclusive event
 when event A and event B cannot occur together,
there are mutually exclusive.
 Formula:
 P(A  B) = P(A) + P(B) where P(A ∩ B) = 

S
A B

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Example:

 A flipped coin coming up heads and the same coin

coming up tails at the same time is not possible as
they are mutually exclusive events.
 A student passing a test and failing it are mutually
exclusive (though someone can fail a test, retake it,
and then pass‐ or have the grade scaled).
 When rolling a six‐sided die, each of the outcomes
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are mutually exclusive
 A subject can be male or female and cannot be both
appear at same time.

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 Non‐mutually exclusive
 If event A and event B are non‐mutually exclusive
events, there is possibility that event A and event B will
happen at the same time.
 Formula:
 P(A  B) = P(A) +P(B) – P(A and B)
 P(A  B) = P(A) +P(B) – P(A  B)

S
A B

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Example:
1) In a business course in a college, 90% of the
students passed Mathematics , 95% of the students
passed Management , and 88% passed
Mathematics and Management. A student is
selected at random.

a) What is the probability that the student passed

Mathematics or Management?
b) What is the probability that the student passed
neither Mathematics nor Management?
c) What is the probability that the student passed
Mathematics but failed in Management?

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2) Suppose that 25% of the population in a given area is

exposed to TV commercial on Perodua Kembara, and
34% is exposed from the radio. It is known that 10%
of the population is exposed to the same commercial
through both media.
a) If a person is randomly chosen, what is the
probability that he or she was exposed to at least one
of the media?
b) What is the probability that a person chosen was not
exposed to any of the media?

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3) Hospital records show that 12% of all patients are

admitted for a cancer treatment, 16% are
admitted for a stomach treatment and 2% receive
both cancer and stomach treatments. If a new
patient is admitted to the hospital, what is the
probability that the patient will be admitted for a
cancer treatment or stomach treatment?

4) Given that the probability that employee A will fail

a certain job interview is 0.5 while the probability
that employee B will fail the job interview is 0.2,
and the probability that both A and B will fail a
certain job interview is 0.1. What is the probability
that at least one of these two employees will fail
the interview?

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5) Events A and B are such that P(A) = 3/8, P(B) = 1/4

and P(A  B ) = 1/2 . Find P (A  B).

6) Let ζ={3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15}
If A is the event ‘an odd number’
B is the event ‘a multiple of five’
Find P(A  B).

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7) In a class of 38 students, 18 decided to enrol

for swimming course and 20 students enrol
horse riding course and only 8 of them enrol for
both courses.

a) Draw a Venn diagram to illustrate the above

situation.
b) Find the probability that a student enrol only
on horse riding course.
c) Calculate the probability of student who
enrol for both courses.

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8) In a class of 260 seniors, 93 study Spanish, 95

study Chemistry, 165 study Mathematics, 18
study Spanish and Chemistry, 75 study
Chemistry and Math, 20 study Math and
Spanish and 15 study all three subjects. Make a
Venn diagram to illustrate the data and then
find the probability that a student selected at
random studies as below:

a) study only Spanish?

b) study Math and Chemistry but not Spanish?
c) study none of these subjects?

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2.4.4 Probability of
Independent Events
(The Multiplication Rule)
 Independent event
 When two events occur successively, if two
events are independent, the occurrence of one
event is not affected by the result of the other
event.
 P(A  B) = P(A)  P(B)

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 Suppose you flip a coin and roll a die. Are the two events
independent?

 Suppose two 24 year old male drivers who live in Sarawak

are randomly selected. Are events “male 1 gets in a car
accident” and “male 2 gets in a car accident” independent?

 If a couple wants to have two children, what is the

probability of getting a boy and a girl?

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 Non‐independent event
 When the occurrence of one event is affected by
the occurrence of another event.
 P (A  B) = P(A)  P(B|A)
 P (A  B) = P(B)  P(A|B)
 When P(B|A) = P(B) or P(A|B) = P(A)
then the two events are independent
 Conditional probability is involved
𝑃 𝐴∩𝐵 𝑃 𝐴∩𝐵
P(A|B)= or P(B|A)=
𝑃 𝐵 𝑃 𝐴

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Example 1:
A coin is tossed and a single 6‐sided dice is
rolled. Find the probability of landing on the
head side of the coin and rolling a 3 on the dice.

Example 2:
A jar contains 3 red, 5 green, 2 blue and 6 yellow
marbles. A marble is chosen at random from the
jar. After replacing it, a second marble is chosen.
What is the probability of choosing a green and
then a yellow marble?

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Males (million) Females (million) Total (million)

Never married 28.6 23.3 51.9
Married 62.1 62.8 124.9
Widowed 2.7 11.3 14.0
Divorced 9.0 12.7 21.7
TOTAL (million) 102.4 110.1 212.5

An individual is selected at random. Find the

probability that:
a) individual is widowed
b) Individual is married or female
c) individual is divorced and a male
d) individual is never married, given the
individual is female

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Example 4:

 An English class consists of 12 male and 18 female

students. Three of the male students and five of the
female students are non‐bumiputras. A student is
randomly selected. Find the
a) probability of a male student
b) probability of a male student given that
the student is a non‐bumiputra
c) probability of selecting either a male or a
non‐ bumiputra student

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 The events F and N are such that P(F) = 0.64,

P(N) = 0.33 and P(F or N)=0.84.
Find the probability of not F and not N.
‐ Are events F and N independent? State
your reason.

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 Given P(A|B) = 5/12, P(B) = 3/5 and

P(A  B’) = 2/5. Find
‐ P (A  B)
‐ P(A’  B)
‐ P(A’|B)
‐ determine whether A and B are
mutually exclusive events

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 If C and D are two independent events and P(C)= 0.2

and P(D)=0.4. Find
‐ P (C  D)
‐ P (C|D)

 A bag contains five red balls and eight yellow balls.

If two balls are drawn without replacement, what is
the probability that both are yellow?

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2.5 Tree Diagram

 A tree diagram is used to display the outcomes
of an experiment which consists of series of
activities.
 Example:

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2.6 Bayes’ Theorem

 Develop by Reverend Thomas Bayes (1702‐1761)
 Suppose k events, A1, A2,……, Ak from partitions
of S and B is any event in S.

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 The conditional probability that an event A

has occurred, given that B is occurred is

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Example 1:
Three companies , A, B, and C are competing for a contract to
build a condominium. The probability that companies A, B and
C will win the contract are 0.25, 0.45, and 0.3 respectively. If
the company A, B and C win the contract , the probability that
they will make profit are 0.8, 0.9, 0.7 respectively.
a) Construct a tree diagram based on information given in
the question.
b) What is the probability that the companies will make
profit?
c) If the contract is found to be profitable, find that the
contract was given to company A.

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Example 2:
In an annual club election, there are three possible
candidates. The probability of En. Mawi, En, Yazer and En
Jefri being nominated are 0.15, 0.55, and 0.30
respectively. If the nominated candidates take part in the
election, the probability that the election is won by En.
MAwi, En. Yazer and En.Jefri are 0.5, 0.65 and 0.4
repectively.
a) Draw a tree diagram for above information
b) Given that someone won the election, what is the
probability that the winner is En. Mawi?

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A hospital has 300 nurses. During the past year, 48 of the nurses
earned a pay raise. At the beginning of the year, the hospital
offered a special training seminar, which was attended by 138
of the nurses. Twenty‐seven of the nurses who earned a raise
attended the training seminar.
a) Construct a tree diagram to represent the above.
b) What is the probability that a nurse earned a pay raise?
c) If a nurse earned a pay raise, what is the probability that the
person attended the seminar ?

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Each bag in a large box contains 25 tulip bulbs. Three‐fourth

of the bags are Type A containing 5 red and 20 yellow tulips;
one‐fourth of the bags are of Type B containing 15 red and
10 yellow tulips. A bag is selected at random and one bulb is
planted.
a) What is the probability that the bulb will produce a
yellow tulip?
b) What is the probability that the bulb will produce a red
tulip?
c) If the tulip is red, what is the probability that a bag
having 15 red and 10 yellow tulips was selected?

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An airplane manufacturer has two factories. 65% of the

production comes from factory X and the remaining production
comes from factory Y. Half of the airplane produced in factory X
were commercial airplanes and 45% of the airplane produced in
factory Y were commercial airplanes.

a) Draw a tree diagram for the above information.

b) Find the probability that a randomly selected airplane comes
from factory Y or were commercial airplane.
c) If an airplane produced by the manufacturer is selected at
random and found to be a non‐commercial airplane, what is
the probability that the airplane was produced in factory Y?

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