CH 13.

PROBABILITY (1 Mark)
2024
1. The probability distribution of a random variable X is
X 0 1 2 3 4
where k is some unknown constant. The probability that
P(X) 0.1 k 2k k 0.1 the random variable X takes the value 2 is
(A) 1/5 (B) 2/5 (C) 4/5 (D) 1
2023
1. If for any two events A and B, P (A) = 4/5 and P (A ∩ B) = 7/10, then P (B/A) is
(A) 1/10 (B) 1/8 (C) 7/8 (D) 17/20
2. Five fair coins are tossed simultaneously. The probability of the event that at least one
head comes up is
(A) 27/32 (B) 5/32 (C) 31/32 (D) 1/32
3. If A and B are two independent events such that P(A)= 1/3 and P(B) = 1/4, then P(B'/A) is
(A) ¼ (B) 1/8 (C) ¾ (D) 1
2020
1. A bag contains 3 black, 4 red and 2 green balls. If three balls are drawn simultaneously at
random, then the probability that the balls are of different colours is _______________.
2. An unbiased coin is tossed 4 times. Find the probability of getting at least one head.
1 1 1
3. A problem is given to three students whose probabilities of solving it are , and
3 4 6
respectively. If the events of solving the problem are independent, find the probability that
at least one of them solves it.
4. A black die and a red die are rolled together. Find the conditional probability of obtaining
a sum greater than 9 given that the black die resulted in a 5.

CH 13. PROBABILITY (Assertion-Reason Based Questions-1 Mark)

In the following questions, a statement of assertion (A) is followed by a statement of Reason (R).
Choose the correct answer out of the following choices:
(a) Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A.
(b) Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of A.
(c) A is true but R is false.
(d) A is false but R is true.
2023
1. Assertion (A): Two coins are tossed simultaneously. The probability of getting two heads,
if it is known that at least one head comes up, is 1/3.
𝑃 (𝐸 ∩ 𝐹)
Reason (R): Let E and F be two events with a random experiment, then P (F/E) = .
𝑃 (𝐸)

CH 13. PROBABILITY (2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Marks)

2024
3 marks
1. A card from a well shuffled deck of 52 playing cards is lost. From the remaining cards of
the pack, a card is drawn at random and is found to be a King. Find the probability of the
lost card being a King.
OR
A biased die is twice as likely to show an even number as an odd number. If such a die is
thrown twice, find the probability distribution of the number of sixes. Also, find the mean
of the distribution.
2023
5 marks
1. In answering a question on a multiple-choice test, a student either knows the answer or
guesses. Let 3/5 be the probability that he knows the answer and 2/5 be the probability that
he guesses. Assuming that a student who guesses at the answer will be correct with
probability 1/3. What is the probability that the student knows the answer, given that he
answered it correctly?
2. A box contains 10 tickets, 2 of which carry a prize of ₹ 8 each, 5 of which carry a prize of
₹ 4 each, and remaining 3 carry a prize of ₹ 2 each. If one ticket is drawn at random, find
the mean value of the prize.

2022
2 marks
1. A bag contains 3 red and 4 white balls. Three balls are drawn at random, one-by-one
without replacement from the bag. If the first ball drawn is red in colour, then find the
probability that the remaining two balls drawn are also red in colour.
2. A coin is tossed twice. The following table shows the
X 0 1 2
probability distribution of number of tails:
P(X) K 6K 9K
(a) Find the value of K.
(b) Is the coin tossed biased or unbiased? Justify your answer.
3. There are two bags. Bag I contains 1 red and 3 white balls, and Bag II contains 3 red and 5
white balls. A bag is selected at random and a ball is drawn from it. Find the probability
that the ball so drawn is red in colour.
4. Three friends A, B and C got their photograph clicked. Find the probability that B is
standing at the central position, given that A is standing at the left corner.

2020
2 marks
1. If A and B are two events such that P(A) = 0.4, P(B) = 0.3 and P (A ∪ B) = 0.6, then find
P (B' ∩ A).
4 marks
2. A bag contains two coins, one biased and the other unbiased. When tossed, the biased coin
has a 60 % chance of showing heads. One of the coins is selected at random and on
tossing it shows tails. What is the probability it was an unbiased coin?
3. The probability distribution of a random variable X, where k is a constant is given below:
0.1, 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 0
2
𝑘𝑥 , 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 1
𝑃 (𝑋 = 𝑥 ) = {
𝑘𝑥, 𝑖𝑓 𝑥 = 2 𝑜𝑟 3
0, 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒
Determine: (a) the value of k (b) P (x ≤ 2) (c) Mean of the variable X

2019
2 marks
1. Mother, father and son line up at random for a family photo. If A and B are two events
given by A = Son on one end, B = Father in the middle, find P (B/A).
2. Let X be a random variable which assumes values 𝑥1 , 𝑥2 , 𝑥3 , 𝑥4 such that 2P (X = 𝑥1 ) =
3P (X = 𝑥2 ) = P (X = 𝑥3 ) = 5P (X = 𝑥4 ). Find the probability distribution of X.
3. A coin is tossed 5 times. Find the probability of getting
(i) at least 4 heads, and (ii) at most 4 heads.
 6 marks
4. There are two boxes I and II. Box I contains 3 red and 6 black balls. Box II contains 5 red
and ‘n’ black balls. One of the two boxes, box I and box II is selected at random and a ball
is drawn at random. The ball drawn is found to be red. If the probability that this red ball
3
comes out from box II is , find the value of ‘n’.
5
5. Find the probability distribution (mean and variance) of the random variable X which
denotes the number of doublets in four throws of a pair of dice.

2018
2 marks
1. A black and a red die are rolled together. Find the conditional probability of obtaining the
sum 8, given that the red die resulted in a number less than 4.
4 marks
2. Suppose a girl throws a die. If she gets 1 or 2, she tosses a coin three times and notes the
number of tails. If she gets 3, 4, 5 or 6, she tosses a coin once and notes whether a head or
tail is obtained. If she obtained exactly one tail, what is the probability that she threw 3, 4,
5 or 6 with the die?
3. Two numbers are selected at random (without replacement) from the first five positive
integers. Let X denote the larger of the two numbers obtained. Find the probability
distribution (mean and variance) of X.

2017
2 marks
1. A die, whose faces are marked 1, 2, 3 in red and 4, 5, 6 in green, is tossed. Let A be the
event “number obtained is even” and B be the event “number obtained is red”. Find if A
and B are independent events.
4 marks
2. There are 4 cards numbered 1, 3, 5 and 7, one number on one card. Two cards are drawn
at random without replacement. Let X denotes the sum of the numbers on the two drawn
cards. Find the probability distribution (mean and variance) of X.
3. Of the students in a school, it is known that 30% have 100% attendance and 70% students
are irregular. Previous year results report that 70% of all students who have 100%
attendance attain A grade and 10% irregular students attain A grade in their annual
examination. At the end of the year, one student is chosen at random from the school and
he was found to have an A grade. What is the probability that the student has 100 %
attendance?

2016
4 marks
1. In a game, a man wins `5 for getting a number greater than 4 and loses `1 otherwise,
when a fair die is thrown. The man decided to throw a die thrice but to quit as and when
he gets a number greater than 4. Find the probability distribution (expected value) of the
amount he wins/loses.
2. A bag contains 4 balls. Two balls are drawn at random (without replacement) and are
found to be white. What is the probability that all balls in the bag are white?
6 marks
3. Five bad oranges are accidentally mixed with 20 good ones. If four oranges are drawn one
by one successively with replacement, then find the probability distribution of number of
bad oranges drawn. (Hence find the mean and variance of the distribution.)
2015
4 marks
1. A and B throw a die alternatively till one of them gets a number greater than four and wins
the game. If A starts the game, what is the probability of B winning?
2. A die is thrown three times. Events A and B are defined as below:
A: 5 on the first and 6 on the second throw; B: 3 or 4 on the third throw.
Find the probability of B, given that A has already occurred.
6 marks
3. 40 % students of a college reside in hostel and the remaining reside outside. At the end of
the year, 50 % of the hostelers got A grade while from outside students, only 30 % got A
grade in the examination. At the end of the year, a student of the college was chosen at
random and was found to have gotten A grade. What is the probability that the selected
student was a hosteler?

2014
6 marks
1. There are three coins. One is a two-headed coin (having head on both faces), another is a
biased coin that comes up heads 75% of the times and third is also a biased coin that
comes up tails 40% of the times. One of the three coins is chosen at random and tossed,
and it shows heads. What is the probability that it was the two-headed coin?
2. Two numbers are selected at random (without replacement) from the first six positive
integers. Let X denotes the larger of the two numbers obtained. Find the probability
distribution of the random variable X, (and hence find the mean of the distribution.)

2013
4 marks
1. The probabilities of two students A and B coming to the school in time are 3/7 and 5/7
respectively. Assuming that the events, ‘A coming in time’ and ‘B coming in time’ are
independent, find the probability of only one of them coming to the school in time.
6 marks
2. In a hockey match, both teams A and B scored same number of goals up to the end of the
game, so to decide the winner, the referee asked both the captains to throw a die
alternately and decided that the team, whose captain gets a six first, will be declared the
winner. If the captain of team A was asked to start, find their respective probabilities of
winning the match and state whether the decision of the referee was fair or not.

2012
4 marks
1. Two cards are drawn simultaneously (without replacement) from a well-shuffled pack of
52 cards. Find the probability distribution (mean and variance) of the number of red cards.
6 marks
2. Suppose a girl throws a die. If she gets a 5 or 6, she tosses a coin 3 times and notes the
number of heads. If she gets 1, 2, 3 or 4, she tosses a coin once and notes whether a head
or tail is obtained. If she obtained exactly one head, what is the probability that she threw
1, 2, 3 or 4 with the die?
2011
4 marks
1. A random variable X has the following probability distribution:
X 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2 2 2
P (X) 0 K 2K 2K 3K 𝐾 2𝐾 7𝐾 + 𝐾
Determine: (i) K (ii) P (X < 3) (iii) P (X>6) (iv) P (0 < X < 3)
6 marks
3. Given three identical boxes I, II and III each containing two coins. In box I, both coins are
gold coins, in box II, both are silver coins and in box III, there is one gold and one silver
coin. A person chooses a box at random and takes out a coin. If the coin is of gold, what is
the probability that the other coin in the box is also of gold?

2010
4 marks
1. A family has 2 children. Find the probability that both are boys, if it is known that (i) at
least one of the children is a boy (ii) the elder child is a boy.
6 marks
2. If a machine is correctly set up, it produces 90% acceptable items. If it is incorrectly set
up, it produces only 40% acceptable items. Past experience shows that 80% of the set ups
are correctly done. If after a certain set up, the machine produces 2 acceptable items, find
the probability that the machine is correctly set up.

2009
4 marks
1. On a multiple-choice examination with three possible answers (out of which only one is
correct) for each of the five questions, what is the probability that a candidate would get
four or more correct answers just by guessing?
6 marks
2. Coloured balls are distributed in three bags as shown in the following table:
A bag is selected at random and then two balls are randomly
Colour of the ball
drawn from the selected bag. They happen to be black and Bag
red. What is the probability that they came from bag I? Black White Red
3. A man is known to speak the truth 3 out of 5 times. He I 1 2 3
throws a die and reports that it is a number greater than 4. II 2 4 1
Find the probability that it is actually a number greater than III 4 5 3
4.

2008
4 marks
1. 12 cards, numbered 1 to 12, are placed in a box, mixed up thoroughly and then a card is
drawn at random from the box. If it is known that the number on the drawn card is more
than 3, find the probability that it is an even number.
6 marks
2. In a bulb factory, machines A, B and C manufacture 60%, 30% and 10% bulbs
respectively. 1%, 2% and 3% of the bulbs produced respectively by A, B and C are found
to be defective. A bulb is picked up at random from the total production and found to be
defective. Find the probability that this bulb was produced by the machine A.
 CH 13. PROBABILITY (Case study based questions - 4 marks)
2024
1. Rohit, Jaspreet and Alia appeared for an interview for three vacancies in the same post.
The probability of Rohit’s selection is 1/5, Jaspreet’s selection is 1/3 and Alia’s selection
is 1/4. The event of selection is independent of each other. Based on the above
information, answer the following questions:
(i) What is the probability that at least one of them is selected?
(ii) Find P (G |𝐻 ̅) where G is the event of Jaspreet’s selection and 𝐻 ̅ denotes the event that
Rohit is not selected.
(iii) Find the probability that exactly one of them is selected.
OR
Find the probability that exactly two of them are selected.

2022
1. In a game of Archery, each ring of the Archery target is valued. The centermost ring is
worth 10 points and rest of the rings are allotted points 9 to 1 in sequential order moving
outwards. Archer A is likely to earn 10 points with a probability of 0.8 and Archer B is
likely to earn 10 points with a probability of 0.9.

Based on the above information, answer the following questions:

If both of them hit the Archery target, then find the probability that
(a) exactly one of them earns 10 points.
(b) both of them earn 10 points.