Unit 10: PROBABILITY

10.1.- EVENTS AND THEIR PROBABILITIES

Remember these concepts:

Random experiments are those that can’t be

predicted with total certainty.

Examples: tossing a coin, rolling a dice, choosing a

card from a deck, choosing a marble from a bag, …

The set of all possible outcomes (results) of a random experiment is called the
sample space (S).

The basic outcomes of an experiment are also known as elementary events.

An event is a set of outcomes, that is, a subset of the sample space.

Example: rolling a dice

Sample Space: S  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are elementary events

A  "even number"  2, 4, 6 is an event that has three elementary events

Three important events

Sure event: event that always occurs, whatever the result of the experiment is.
The sample space S is a sure event.

Impossible event: event that never occurs, whatever the result of the
experiment is. The empty set  is an impossible event.

Complement: the complement of an event A, denoted

by A , is the set of all basic outcomes in the sample
space that do not belong to A.

The complement of A is also called “not A”.

Example: For the experiment of rolling a dice,

if A  5, 6 , then A  1, 2, 3, 4

F. Cano Cuenca 1 Mathematics 4º ESO

Union and intersection of events
If A and B are two events in a sample space S,

 A  B  ”either A or B will occur”, that is, A  B is the set of all outcomes

in S that belong to either A or B.

The event A  B occurs when either “occurs A or B” or “occurs both of

them”.

 A  B  ”both A and B will occur”, that is, A  B is the set of all outcomes
in S that belong to both A and B.

The event A  B occurs when A and B occur at the same time.

Example: For the experiment of rolling a dice

A  ”getting a number less than 5” B  ”getting an even number”

A  1, 2, 3, 4 B  2, 4, 6

A  B  1, 2, 3, 4, 6

A  B  2, 4

If A is an event in the sample space S,

AA   AA  S

Mutually exclusive events

A and B are mutually exclusive events if they cannot happen at the same time.
If A and B are mutually exclusive events, they have no basic outcomes in
common, that is, A  B   . Mutually exclusive events are also called disjoint
events or incompatible events.

Example: If we roll a dice, the events A  ”getting an even number” and

B  ”getting an odd number” cannot happen at the same time.

A  2, 4, 6 B  1, 3, 5 AB  

F. Cano Cuenca 2 Mathematics 4º ESO

Exercise 1

A bag contains 10 marbles with numbers from 1 to 10. A marble is drawn at

random from the bag.

a) What is the sample space?

b) Write the events:
A = “getting a prime number” B = “getting a multiple of 3”
c) Write the events: A , B , A  B , A  B , A  A , A  A .

Exercise 2

A coin is tossed three times.

a) Write all the possible elementary events.

b) Write the event A = “the first time the coin lands on
head”.
c) Write an event B such that A and B are mutually
exclusive events.

Properties of the probability

The probability of the even sure is 1. The sure event occurs 100% of the times
we do a random experiment.

Therefore, it is natural this 100% is divided up among the elementary events of

the random experiment. The following properties of the probability comes from
this fact.

The probability of the impossible event is 0, the probability of

the sure event is 1, and the probability of another event, A, is a
number between 0 and 1.

P    0 P S   1 0  P A  1

The sum of the probabilities of the elementary events is 1.

That is, if S  x1, x2, ... , xn  , then P  x1   P  x2   ...  P  xn   1

F. Cano Cuenca 3 Mathematics 4º ESO

 The probability of an event is the sum of the probabilities of its
elementary events.

If A  x1, x2, ... , xk , then P A  P  x1   P  x2   ...  P  xk 

The sum of the probability of A and the probability of “not A” is 1.


P  A  P A  1 
P A  1  P  A

Example: If we roll a dice, S  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

            
P 1  P 2  P 3  P 4  P 5  P 6  1

      
If A  1, 3, 5 , P A  P 1  P 3  P 5

 
A  2, 4, 6 , and P A  1  P A  

If we want to find these probabilities, we need to know how the dice is.

a) If it is a fair dice, the six elementary events have the same probability.,
they are equally likely.

1
          
P 1  P 2  P 3  P 4  P 5  P 6    6

1 1
      
P A  P 1  P 3  P 5  3  
6 2

 
P A  1  P A   1 
1 1

2 2

b) If it is a biased dice, the six elementary events doesn’t have the same
probability.

The distribution of the probabilities could be anyone, provided their sum

is 1.

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      
Example: P 1  0.2 , P 2  0.3 , P 3  0.15 ,

P 4  0.15 , P 5  0.1 , P 6  0.1

      
P A  P 1  P 3  P 5  0.2  0.15  0.1  0.45

 
P A  1  P A  1  0.45  0.55

Exercise 3

a) If we roll a fair dice, what are the probabilities of the events

A  3, 4, 5, 6 and A ?

b) If we rolled the biased dice of the previous example, what would the
probabilities of A and A be?

10.2.- THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL PROBABILITY

Theoretical probability
You can calculate the theoretical probability when an event is fair or unbiased.

For example:
A fair coin is thrown.
1 one head,
Probability of a fair coin landing on ‘heads’  .
2 two outcomes

An unbiased dice is rolled.

one ‘2’,
1 six outcomes
Probability of an unbiased dice landing on ‘2’ 
6

Theoretical probability is based on equally likely outcomes.

Theoretical probabilities are calculated on the assumption that the number of

favourable outcomes and the number of possible outcomes are as expected.

number of favourable outcomes

Probability of an outcome 
number of possible outcomes

This theoretical probability is called Laplace’s law.

F. Cano Cuenca 5 Mathematics 4º ESO

You can use the theoretical probability of a particular outcome happening to
calculate the expected number of times it will occur.

Total number Probability of a

Expected number  
of outcomes particular outcome happening

Example: A spinner has 8 sides, of which 4 show squares, 3 show triangles, and 1
shows a circle. The spinner is spun 400 times. Find the number of times the
spinner is expected to show
a) a square b) a triangle
4
a) Expected number of squares  400  P  square   400   200
8
3
b) Expected number of triangles  400  P  triangle   400   150
8

Experimental probability
Experimental probability is also known as relative frequency.

Relative frequency is the proportion of successful trials in an experiment.

The more trials that are carried out the more reliable the estimate of
probability.

You can compare the relative frequency (experimental probability) of an

outcome with the theoretical probability. If they are quite different, the
experiment may be biased.

Example: Dan suspects that a particular dice has a bias towards the number 3.
Dan rolls the dice 30 times and gets these results

4 3 3 3 6 5 1 3 2 5
1 3 4 5 3 3 6 2 5 4
6 3 1 3 6 5 3 2 4 3

a) What is the relative frequency of rolling a 3?

b) Is the dice biased towards 3? Explain your answer.

F. Cano Cuenca 6 Mathematics 4º ESO

 11
a) The number 3 is rolled 11 times. Relative frequency 
30
1
b) Theoretical probability of rolling a ‘3’ is P 3 
6
1
In 30 rolls expected number of 3s  30  5
6
5 is not close to 11 so the dice does appear to be biased towards 3.

Exercise 4

A standard Spanish deck of 40 cards is shuffled, and one

card is drawn. Find the probability of the card is

a) either a king or an ace.

b) a picture card and “oros”.
c) not “copas”.

Exercise 5

A jar contains seven marbles, all the same size. Three are red and four are
green. If a marble is chosen at random, find each probability:

a) P(red) b) P(green) c) P(not red)

d) P(red or green) e) P(red and green) f) P[not (red or green)]

Exercise 6

A pair of dice is rolled and we write down the difference of the scores.

a) What is the sample space?

b) Find the probability of each one of the elementary events.
c) Find the probability of the event “the difference is greater than 3”.

Exercise 7

There are 240 students in Year 10 at Endeavour School.

In a survey of 48 students from Year 10, 5 were left-
handed. How many of the whole of Year 10 would you
expect to be left-handed?

Exercise 8

Jim carries out an experiment. He throws a coin 320 times. The coin lands on
tails 114 times. Is the coin fair? Explain your answer.

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10.3.- THE PROBABILITY OF (A OR B)
If a fair dice is rolled, we can find simple probabilities. For example, let A, B and
C be the following events:

A = “rolling an even number”

3
P A 
6

B = “rolling a number less than 3”

2
P B  
6

C = “rolling a number less than 2”

1
P C 
6

Now, what is the probability of obtaining a number on the dice that is even or
less than 2?

A or C = “rolling a number that is

4
even or less than 2” P A or C  
6
3 1 4
P A  P  C    
6 6 6

In this case, it appears that P A or C   P A   P  C 

Will this simple addition rule hold true for all problems? Before you say “yes”
consider the next example:

A or B = “rolling a number that is

4
even or less than 3” P A or B  
6
3 2 5
P A  P B    
6 6 6

In this case, the simple rule of addition does not work: P  A or B   P A   P B 

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What makes this example different from P  A or C  , shown previously?

A rule for the probability of (A or B)

Probability is based on the number of outcomes in a given event.

For the event (A or B) in our example, we observe that the outcome “2” is found
in event A and in event B. Therefore, we may describe “rolling a 2” as the event
(A and B).

The simple addition rule does not work for the event (A or B) because we have
counted the event (A and B) twice: first in event A, then again in event B.

In order to count the event (A and B) only once, we must subtract the number of
shared elements, n(A or B), from the overall number of elements in (A or B).

Thus, the rule becomes: n  A or B   n  A  n B   n A and B  .

For this example: n  A or B   3  2  1  4

Dividing each term by the number of element in S, n(S), we get:

n  A or B  n A n A n A and B 

  
n S n S  n S  n S 

n  A or B  3 2 1 4
   
n S 6 6 6 6

n  A or B 
Since P  A or B   , we can write a general rule:
n S

P  A or B   P  A  P B   P A and B 

In set terminology, the rule for probability becomes:

P  A  B   P  A   P B   P  A  B 

F. Cano Cuenca 9 Mathematics 4º ESO

Mutually exclusive events
We have been examining three different events that occur when a dice is
tossed.

A  an even number  2, 4, 6

B  a number less than 3  1, 2

C  a number less than 2  1

We found that

P A or C   P A   P  C 

P  A or B   P  A  P B   P A and B 

Why are these results different?

Of these sets, A and C are disjoint, that is they

have no element in common.

Events A and C are said to be mutually exclusive

events because only one of the events can occur
at any one throw of the dice. Events that are
disjoints sets are mutually exclusive.

If two events A and C are mutually exclusive:

P  A  C   P  A  P  C 

Sets A and B are not disjoint sets. They have

element 2 in common.

Events A and B are not mutually exclusive events

because both can occur at any one throw of the
dice. Events that are not disjoint sets are not
mutually exclusive.

If two events A and B are not mutually exclusive:

P  A  B   P  A   P B   P  A  B 

F. Cano Cuenca 10 Mathematics 4º ESO

Exercise 9

A spinner consists of five equal sectors of a circle. The

sectors are numbered 1 through 5, and when an arrow is
spun, it is equally likely to stop on any sector. For a
single spin of the arrow, determine whether or not the
events are mutually exclusive and find the probability
that the number on the sector is:

a) 3 or 4 b) odd or 2 c) 3 or less than 4

d) odd or 3 e) less than 2 or more than 4 f) even or more than 2

Exercise 10

A standard Spanish deck of 40 cards is shuffled, and one card is drawn at

random. Find the probability that the card is:

a) a king or an ace b) “oros” or and ace

Exercise 11

A town has two newspapers, the Times and the

Chronicle. One out of every two people in the town
subscribes to the Times, three out of every five people
in the town subscribe to the Chronicle, and three out of
every ten people in the town subscribe to both papers.

What is the probability that a person in the town chosen at random subscribes
to the Times or the Chronicle?

Exercise 12

If B is a subset of A, which of the following is true? Explain your answer.

a) P  A  B   P  A  b) P  A  B   P  A  c) P  A  B   P  A 

Exercise 13

In a sophomore class of 340 students, some students study Spanish, some study
French, some study both languages, and some study neither language. If
P(Spanish) = 0.70, P(French)= 0.40, and P(Spanish and French) = 0.25, find:

a) The probability that a sophomore studies Spanish or French.

b) The number of sophomores who study one or more of these languages.

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10.4.- THE COUNTING PRINCIPLE AND SAMPLE SPACES
So far, we have looked at simple problems involving a single activity, such as
rolling one die or choosing one card. More realistic problems occur when there
are two or more activities, such as rolling two dice or dealing a hand of five
cards.

An event consisting of two or more activities is called a compound event.

Before studying the probability of events based on two or more activities, let us
study ways to count the number of elements or outcomes in a sample space for
two or more activities.

For example:

A store offers five flavours of ice cream: vanilla, chocolate,

strawberry, peach, and raspberry. A sundae can be made with
either a hot fudge topping or a marshmallow topping. If a
sundae consists of one flavour of ice cream and one topping,
how many different sundaes are possible?

We will use letters to represent the five flavours of ice cream (V, C, S, P, R) and
the two toppings (F, M). We can show the number of elements in the sample
space in two ways:

1. Tree diagram.

The tree diagram at the right first branches out to

show five flavours of ice cream. For each of these
flavours the tree again branches out to show the
two toppings.

In all, there are 10 paths or branches to follow,

each with one flavour of ice cream and one topping.
These 10 branches show that the sample space
consists of 10 possible outcomes, in this case,
sundaes.

2. List of ordered pairs.

It is usual to order a sundae by telling the clerk the flavour of ice cream
first and then the type of topping. This suggests a list of ordered pairs.
The first component of the ordered pair is the ice cream flavour, and the
second component is the type of topping. The set of pairs is shown below.

V, F , V, M, C, F , C, M , S, F , S, M , P, F , P, M , R, F , R, M 

F. Cano Cuenca 12 Mathematics 4º ESO

Whether we use a tree diagram or a list of ordered pairs, we recognize that the
sample space consists of 10 sundaes. The number of elements in the sample
space can be found by multiplication

number of flavours number of number of

x =
of ice cream toppings possible sundaes

5 x 2 = 10

Suppose the store offered 30 flavours of ice cream and seven possible toppings.
To find the number of elements in the sample space, we multiply:

30 x 7 = 210 possible sundaes

The simple multiplication procedure is known as the counting principle, because

it enables us to count the number of elements in a sample space.

The counting principle:

If one activity can occur in any of m ways and, following this, a second
activity can occur in any n ways, then both activities can occur in the order
given in m x n ways.

We can extend this rule to include three or more activities by extending the
multiplication process. We can also display three or more activities by extending
the branches on a tree diagram, or by listing ordered elements such as ordered
triples and ordered quadruples.

Exercise 14

The school cafeteria offers the menu shown:

a) How many meals consisting of one

main course, one dessert, and one
beverage can be selected from
these menu?

b) Joe does not like ham and tuna. How

many meals can Joe select, not
having ham and not having tuna?

c) If the pizza, frankfurters, yogurt and fruit salad have been sold out, how
many different meals can Peter select from the remaining menu?

F. Cano Cuenca 13 Mathematics 4º ESO

Exercise 15

A sack contains four marbles: one red, one blue, one white, one green. One
marble is drawn and placed on the table. Then a second marble is drawn and
placed to the right of the first. Draw a tree diagram to show all of the possible
outcomes for this experiment.

10.5.- INDEPENDENT EVENTS

1
The probability of rolling 5 on one toss of a dice is . What is the probability of
6
rolling a pair of 5’s when two dice are tossed?

When we roll two dice, the number obtained on the second die is in no way
determined by the result obtained on the first dice. When we toss two coins,
the face that shows on the second coin is in no way determined by the face that
shows on the first coin.

When the result of one activity in no way influences the result of a second
activity, the results of these activities are called independent events.

In cases where two events are independent, we may extend the counting
principle to find the probability that both independent events occur at the same
time.

For instance, what is the probability that, when two dice

are thrown, a 5 will appear on each of the dice?

Let S represent the sample space and F represent the

event (5 on both dice).

 Use the counting principle to find the number of elements in the sample
space. There are 6 ways in which the first dice can land and 6 ways in
which the second dice can land. Therefore, there are 6 x 6 or 36 pairs of
numbers in the sample space S.

 There is only one face on each dice that has a 5. Therefore, there is 1 x 1
or 1 pair in the event F.

1
 P  5 on both dice  
36

The probability of 5 on both dice can also be determine by using the probability
of each of the independent events.
1 1 1
P  5 on both dice   P  5 on first   P 5 on sec ond    
6 6 36

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The counting principle for probability:

If A and B are independent events, the probability that A and B occur

jointly is the product of the probability of A and the probability of B.

If A and B are independent events  P A and B   P A   P B 

Note: Not all events are independent, and this simple product rule cannot be
used to find the probability when events are not independent.

Exercise 16

A quiz consists of true-false questions only. Harry has not studied, and he
guesses every answer. Find the probability that he will guess correctly to get a
perfect score if the test consist of:

a) 3 questions b) 5 questions c) n questions

Exercise 17

We have two decks of Spanish cards and we draw one from each deck.

a) What is the probability that both card drawn are less than 7?
b) What is the probability that both card drawn are picture cards?

Exercise 18

On Main Street in Pittsford, there are two intersections that

have traffic lights. The lights are not timed to accommodate
traffic. They are independent of one another.

At each of the intersections, P red light   0.3 and

P  green light   0.7 for cars travelling along Main Street.

Find the probability that a car travelling on Main Street be faced with each set
of given conditions at the two traffic lights shown.

a) Both lights are red.

b) The first light is red, and the second is green.
c) At least one light is red, that is, not both lights are green.
d) Both lights are the same colour.

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10.6.- PROBABILITIES WITH TWO OR MORE ACTIVITIES

Without replacement
Two cards are drawn at random from a Spanish deck of 40 cards.

In this situation, a single card is drawn from a deck of 40 cards, and then a
second card is drawn from the remaining 39 cards in the deck.

What is the probability that both cards drawn are kings?

On the first draw, there are four kings in the deck of 40 cards, so

4
P  first king  
40

If a second card is drawn without replacing the first king selected, there are
now only three kings in the 39 cards remaining. Therefore we are considering
the probability of drawing a king, given that a king has already been drawn.

3
P  second king   second
39

By the counting principle for probabilities:

4 3 1 1 1
P both kings   P  first king   P  second king      
40 39 10 13 130

This is called a problem without replacement because the firs king drawn was
not placed back in the deck. These are dependent events because the
probability of a king on the second draw depends on whether or not a king
appeared on the first draw.

In general, if A and B are two dependent events:

P A and B   P A   P B given that A has ocurred 

With replacement
A card is drawn at random from a Spanish deck of 40 cards, the car is placed
back into the deck, and a second card is then drawn and replaced.

In this situation, it is clear that the deck contains 40 cards each time the card
is drawn and that the same card could be drawn twice.

What is the probability that the card drawn each time is a king?

F. Cano Cuenca 16 Mathematics 4º ESO

On the first draw, there are four kings in the deck of 40 cards.

4
P  first king  
40

If the first king drawn is now placed back into the deck, then, on the second
draw, there are again four kings in the deck of 40 cards.

4
P  sec ond king  
40

By the counting principle for probabilities:

4 4 1 1 1
P both kings   P  first king   P  second king        0.01
40 40 10 10 100

This is called a problem with replacement because the first card drawn was
placed back into the deck. In this case, the events are independent because the
probability of a king on the second draw does not depend on whether or not a
king appeared on the first draw. Since the card drawn is replaced, the number
of cards in the deck and the number of kings in the deck remain constant. In
this case;

P B given that A has ocurred   P B 

In general, if A and B are two independent events:

P A and B   P A   P B 

Rolling two dice is similar to drawing two cards with replacement because the
number of faces on each dice remains constant, as did the number of cards in
the deck. Typical problems with replacement include rolling dice, tossing coins
(each coin always has two sides), and spinning arrows.

Conditional Probability
The previous discussion involved the concept of conditional probability. For both
dependent and independent events, in order to find the probability of A followed
by B, it is necessary to calculate the probability that B occurs given that A has
occurred.

Notation for conditional probability is

P B given that A has ocurred   P B / A 

F. Cano Cuenca 17 Mathematics 4º ESO

Then the following statement is true for both dependent and independent
events:
P A  B   P A   P B / A 

If A and B are independent events, P B / A  P B  . Therefore, for independent

events:
P A  B   P A  P B / A  P A  P B 

The general formula P A  B   P A   P B / A  can be solved for P B / A  :

P A  B 
P B / A 
P A

For example:

Suppose a box contains three red marbles and two green marbles. Two marbles
are drawn without replacement. What is the probability that the first marble is
red and the second one is green?

Let R be the event “red marble” and G be the event “green marble”.

3 2 3
P R  G   P R   P  G/ R    
5 4 10

Exercise 19

A jar contains two red and five yellow marbles. A marble is drawn at random and
then replaced. A second draw is made at random. Find the probability that:

a) both marbles are red b) both marbles are yellow

c) both marbles are the same colour d) the marbles are different in colour

Exercise 20

A jar contains two red and five yellow marbles. A marble is drawn at random.
Then without replacement, a second marble is drawn at random. Find the
probability that:

a) both marbles are red b) both marbles are yellow

c) both marbles are the same colour d) the marbles are different in colour
e) The second marble is red given that the first is yellow

F. Cano Cuenca 18 Mathematics 4º ESO

Exercise 21

Paul has a bag of hard candies: three are lemon (L) and two are grape (G). He
eats two of the candies while waiting for a bus, selecting then at random one
after another.

a) Draw a tree diagram or list the sample space of all possible outcomes
showing which candies are eaten.
b) Find the probability of each of the following outcomes:
i) both candies are lemon ii) neither candy is lemon
iii) the candies are the same flavour iv) at least one candy is lemon
c) What is the probability that the second candy that Paul ate was lemon
given that the first was grape?

Exercise 22

One hundred boys and one hundred girls were asked to name the current
Secretary of State. Thirty boys and sixty girls knew the correct name. One of
these boys and girls is selected at random.

a) What is the probability that the person selected knew the correct name?
b) What is the probability that the person selected is a girl, given that that
person knew the correct name?
c) What is the probability that the person selected knew the correct name,
given that the person is a boy?

Exercise 23

Of the 150 members of the high school marching

band, 30 play the trumpet, 40 are in the jazz band,
and 18 play the trumpet and are also in the jazz
band.

a) What is the probability that a randomly chosen member of the marching

band plays the trumpet but is not in the jazz band?
b) What is the probability that a randomly chosen member of the marching
band is also in the jazz band but does not play the trumpet?

F. Cano Cuenca 19 Mathematics 4º ESO