PROBABILITY

CONCEPT MAP:

KEY POINTS:
Conditional Probability
If E and F are two events associated with the same sample space of a random experiment, then the
conditional probability of the event E under the condition that the event F has occurred, written as P (E/F), is
given by
P(E/F) = P(E∩F)/ P(F) ; P(F) ≠0
Properties of Conditional Probability
Let E and F be events associated with the sample space S of an experiment. Then:

(i) P (SIF) = P(FIF) = 1

(ii) P[(A∪B)/F] = P(AIF) + P(BIF)−P [(A∩BI F)], where A and B are any two events associated with S.

(iii) P (𝐸̅ IF) = 1−P (E/F)

112
Multiplication Theorem on Probability
Let E and F be two events associated with a sample space of an experiment. Then
P (E∩F) = P(E) P (F/E), P (E) ≠ 0
= P (F) P (E/F), P (F) ≠ 0
If E, F and G are three events associated with a sample space, then
P(E∩F∩G) = P(E) P (F/E) P (G/E∩F)

Independent Events
Let E and F be two events associated with a sample space S. If the probability of occurrence of one of them
is not affected by the occurrence of the other, then we say that the two events are independent. Thus, two
events E and F will be independent, if
(a) P (FIE) = P (F), provided P (E) ≠ 0
(b) P (E/F) = P(E), provided P (F) ≠ 0
Using the multiplication theorem on probability, we have
(c) P(E/F) = P(E) P (F)
Three events A, B and C are said to be mutually independent if all the following conditions hold:
P(A∩B)=P(A) P (B)
P(A∩C)=P(A) P (C)
P(B∩C) = P(B) P (C) and
P(A∩B∩C) = P (A) P (B) P (C)

Partition of a Sample Space

A set of events E1, E2, ..., En is said to represent a partition of a sample space S if

(a) Ei ∩ Ej =, i≠ 𝑗, I, j = 1, 2, 3........, n

(b) E1UE2U...U En = S, and

(c) Each Ei, ≠ 0, i. e, P (Ei) > 0 for all i = 1, 2, ..., n

Theorem of Total Probability

Let (E1, E2, ..., En} be a partition of the sample space S. Let A be any event associated with S, then

P(A) = ∑𝑛𝑖=1 P(𝐸𝑖 )P(A/𝐸𝑖 )

Bayes' Theorem
IF E1, E2, ..., En are mutually exclusive and exhaustive events associated with a sample space, and A is any event of
non zero probability, then

P(EIA) = P(𝐸𝑖 )P(AI𝐸𝑖 ) /∑𝑛𝑖=1 P(𝐸𝑖 )P(A/𝐸𝑖 )

113
Random Variable and its Probability Distribution
A random variable is a real valued function whose domain is the sample space of a random experiment.The
probability distribution of a random variable X is the system of numbers

X 𝑥1 𝑥2 ……………………. 𝑥𝑛
P(X) 𝑝1 𝑝2 …………………….. 𝑝𝑛
where pi > 0, i=1, 2,..., n , Σpi = 1,

1 MARK QUESTIONS
1 1−𝑃(𝐵)
Two events A and B are such that 𝑃(𝐵) ≠ 0, then 𝑃(𝐴/𝐵̅ ). 𝐴 =
1−𝑃( )
𝐵

𝑎) 𝑃(𝐵) b) 𝑃(𝐴) c)𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) d)None of these

2 If two events are A and B, then the probability of happening only one event of them exactly

𝑎) 𝑃(𝐴) + 𝑃(𝐵) − 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) 𝑏) 𝑃(𝐴) + 𝑃(𝐵) − 2𝑃( 𝐴 ∩ 𝐵)

𝑐) 𝑃(𝐴) + 𝑃(𝐵) − 𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵) 𝑑)𝑃(𝐴/𝐵̅ ) + 𝑃(𝐵/𝐴̅)

3 Given P (A) = ½, P (B) = p and P (A∪B) = 3/5. The value of p for which A and B
are mutually exclusive.
1 1 1 1
𝑎) 𝑏) 𝑐) 𝑑)
5 15 10 7

4 The probability of having 53 Mondays in a leap year chosen randomly

1 3 4 2
a) 7
b) 7 c)7 d) 7

5 If the probability for A to fail in an examination is 0.2 and that for B is 0.3. Then the
probability that neither fails.
a) 0.57 b) 0.58 c) 0.56 d) 0.65
6 If A and B are independent events, and P(A)= ½, P(B) =1/3, then

P (𝐴 ∪ 𝐵 )=
2 1 1 4
a) 3
b) 6 c) 3 d) 3

7 A random variable X is specified by the following distribution.

X 2 3 4

P (X = r) 0.3 0.4 0.3

the mean of this distribution is

a) 2 b) 2.7 c) 3.5 d) 3

114
8 Two dice are thrown. It is known that the sum of numbers on the dice is less than 6, the
probability of getting a sum 3 is
(a) 1/18 (b) 1/10 (c) 2/5 (d) 1/5
9 Events A and B are not independent if

(a) P(A∩B) = P(A/B) P(B) (b) P(A∩B) = P(B/A) P(A)

(c) P(A∩B) =P(A)+P(B) (d)P(A∩B) =P(A)P(B)

10 If two events are independent, then

(a)they must be mutually exclusive (b) the sum of their probabilities must be 1

(c ) both(a) and (b) are correct (d) none of the above

11 If P(A∩B) = 0.15, P(B’) = 0.10, then P(A/B) =

(a) 1/3 (b) ¼ (c) 1/6 (d) 1/5
12 A bag contains 5 red and 3 blue balls. If 3 balls are drawn at random without
replacement, the probability of getting exactly one red ball is
(a) 45/196 (b) 135/392 (c) 15/56 (d) 15/29
13 If P(A) = 1/2, P(B) = 0, then P(A|B) is

(a) 0 (b) ½ (c) not defined (d)1

14 If A and B are any two events such that P(A) + P(B) – P (A and B) =P(A), then
(a) P(B|A) = 1 (b) P(A|B) = 1 (c) P(B|A) = 0 (d) P(A|B) = 0

15 If A and B are two events such that P(A) ≠ 0 and P (B | A) = 1, then

(a) A ⊂ B (b)B ⊂ A (c)B = φ (d)A = φ

16 The probability of obtaining an even prime number on each die, when a pair of dice is rolled
is
(a) 0 (b) 1/3 (c) 1/12 (d) 1/36
17 Two events A and B will be independent, if
(a) A and B are mutually exclusive (b) P(A′∩B′) = [1 – P(A)] [1 – P(B)]
(c) P(A) = P(B) (d) P(A) + P(B) = 1
18 If P(A|B) > P(A), then which of the following is correct:

(a) P(B|A) < P(B) (b)P(A ∩ B) < P(A) . P(B) (c)P(B|A) > P(B) (d) P(B|A) = P(B)
19 Events A and B are said to be mutually exclusive iff

(a) P (A ∩ B) =P(A) +P(B) (b)P (A ∩ B) =P(A)P(B) (c) A ∩ B = φ (d) None of these

115
20 If A and B are independent events, then which of the following is not true
(a) P(A|B) = P(A) (b)P(B|A) = P(B) (c)P(B|A) = P(A|B) (d)None of these
2MARKS QUESTIONS
1 4 7 𝐵
If for any two events A and B, P(A) = and P(A∩ 𝐵) = , then find 𝑃 ( )
5 10 𝐴

2 A bag contains 3 white, 4 black and 2 red balls. If 2 balls are drawn at random
(without replacement), then find the probability that both the balls are white.
3 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 𝐴
Let A and B be two events. If 𝑃(𝐴) = 0.2, 𝑃(𝐵) = 0.4, 𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐵) = 0.6 then find 𝑃 (𝐵)

5 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.
6 To test the quality of electric bulbs produced in a factory, two bulbs are randomly
selected from a large sample without replacement. If either bulb is defective, the entire
lot is rejected. Suppose a sample of 200 bulbs contains 5 defective bulbs. Find
the probability that the sample will be rejected.
7 A fair die is rolled. Consider the events A={1, 3, 5}, B={2, 3} and C={2, 3, 4, 5}.
Find (i) 𝑃(𝐴/𝐵) (ii) 𝑃(𝐵/𝐴)
8 A fair coin and an unbiased die are tossed. Let A be the event ‘head appears on the coin’ and
B be the event ‘3 on the die’. Check whether A and B are independent events or not .
9 10% of the bulbs produced in a factory are red colour and 2 % are red and defective.
If one bulb is picked at random, determine the probability of its being defective if it is red.
2
10 The probability that a person will get an electric contract is 5 and the probability that he will
4 2
not get plumbing contract is . If the probability of getting at least one contract is , what is
7 3
the probability that he will get both ?
3 MARKS QUESTIONS
1 A refrigerator box contains 2 milk chocolates and 4 dark chocolates. Two chocolates are
drawn at random. Find the probability distribution of the number of milk chocolates. What is
the most likely outcome ?

116
2 Bag I contains 3 red and 4 black balls while another bag II contains 5 red and 6 black balls.
One ball is drawn at random from one of the bags and it is found to be red. Find the
probability that it was drawn from bag II .
3 The probability distribution of a random variable X is given below :

X 1 2 3

P(X) 𝑘 𝑘 𝑘
2 3 6

(i) Find the value of k

(ii) Find P(1≤ 𝑋 < 3)
(iii) Find E(X), the mean of X
4 Suppose 5% of men and 0.25% of women have grey hair. A grey haired person is selected at
random. What is the probability of this person being male ? Assume that there are equal
number of males and females
5 A random variable X has the following probability distribution :

X 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

P(X) 0 𝑘 2𝑘 2𝑘 3𝑘 𝑘2 2𝑘 2 7𝑘 2 + 𝑘

Determine :
(i) 𝑘 (ii) P(𝑋 < 3) (iii) P(𝑋 > 6)
6 A bag contains 4 red and 3 black balls. A second bag contains 2 red and 4 black balls. One
bag is selected at random. From the selected bag, one ball is drawn. Find the probability that
the ball drawn is red.
7 Suppose that 6% of the people with blood group O are left handed and 10% of those
with other blood groups are left handed. 30% of the people have blood group O. If a
left handed person is selected at random, what is the probability that he/she will
have blood group O ?
8 An electric assembly consists of two sub-systems say A and B. From previous testing
procedures, the following probabilities are assumed to be known
P(A fails)=0.2, P(B fails alone)=0.15, P( A and B fail)=0.15
Evaluate the following probabilities
(i) P(A fails/B has failed)
(ii) P(A fails alone)

117
9 A machine operates if all of its three components function. The probability that the
first component fails during the year is 0.14, the second component fails is 0.10 and
the third component fails is 0.05. What is the probability that the machine will fail
during the year ?
10 Two thirds of the students in a class are boys and the rest are girls. It is known that
the probability of a girl getting a first class is 0.25 and that of a boy getting a first class
is 0.28. Find the probability that a student chosen at random will get first class marks in
the subject.
5 MARKS QUESTIONS
1 Two boxes containing candies are placed on a table. The boxes are labeled𝐵1 and 𝐵2.
Box 𝐵1 contains 7 cinnamon candies and 4 ginger candies. Box 𝐵2 contains 3
cinnamon candies and 10 pepper candies. The boxes are arranged so that the
probability of selecting box 𝐵1 is 1⁄3 and the probability of selecting box 𝐵2 is 2⁄3.
Suresh is blindfolded and asked to select a candy. He will win a color TV if he selects
a cinnamon candy. What is the probability that Suresh will win the TV (that is, he will select a
cinnamon candy)?
2 Three companies A, B and C supply 25%, 35% and 40% of the notebooks to a school.
Past experience shows that 5%, 4% and 2% of the notebooks produced by
these companies are defective. If a notebook was found to be defective, what is
the probability that the notebook was supplied by A?
3 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 acceptable items,
find the probability that the machine is correctly set up.
4 Of the students in a college, it is known that 60% reside in hostels and 40% are day scholars
(not residing in hostels). Previous year results report that 30% of all students who reside in
hostels attain A grade and 20% of day scholars attain A grade in their annual examination. At
the end of the year, one student is chosen at random from the college and he has an A
grade. What is the probability that the student is a hostler?
5 An urn contains 5 red and 5 black balls. A ball is drawn at random, its color is noted and is
returned to the urn. Moreover, 2 additional balls of the color drawn are put in the urn and
then a ball is drawn at random. What is the probability that the second ball is red?

118
6 Two cards are drawn simultaneously (or successively without replacement) from a well
shuffled pack of 52 cards. Find the mean of the number of aces.
7 Colored balls are distributed in three bags as shown in the following table

Bag Red White Black

I 1 2 3
II 2 4 1
III 4 5 3
A bag is selected at random and two balls are randomly drawn from the selected bag. They
happen to be black and red. What is the probability that they came from bag I.
8 A factory has three machine X, Y, Z producing 1000, 2000, 3000 bolts per day respectively.
The machine X produced 1% defective bolts, Y produce 1.5% and Z produce 2% defective
bolts. At the end of a day, a bolt is drawn at random and is found defective. What is the
probability that the defective bolt is produced by the machine X?
9 Two cards are drawn in succession from a well shuffled deck of 52 cards, the first card being
replaced, before the second is drawn. Let X denote the number of spades drawn. Find the
probability distribution of X?
10 A man is known to speak truth 3 out of 4 times. He throws a die and reports that it is six.
Find the probability that it is actually a six.
CASE BASED QUESTIONS
1 A coach is training three players. He observed that player A hits 4 times the shot in 5 tries,
player B hits 3 times the shot in 4 and player C is able to hit twice the shot in 3 tries.

Based on above information, answer following questions

i) A,B,C all hit. It is a shot. What is the probability that the shot is hit by B only?
ii) If A,B,C all try , what is the probability that it was hit by none?
iii) Find the probability that the shot was hit by exactly 2 players.

119
2 Read the following passage and answer the questions given below:
In an Office three employees Jayant, Sonia and Olivia process a calculation in an excel form.
Probability that Jayant, Sonia, Olivia process the calculation respectively is 50%, 20% and
30% . Jayant has a probability of making a mistake as 0.06 , Sonia has probability 0.04 to
make a mistake and Olivia has a probability 0.03 . Based on the above information, answer
the following questions.

(i)Find the probability that Sonia processed the calculation and committed a mistake.
(ii)Find the total probability of committing a mistake in processing the calculation.
(iii)The boss wants to do a good check. During check, he selects a calculation form at random
from all the days. If the form selected at random has a mistake, find the probability that the
form is not processed by Jayant.
3 Tiki has started late for college. She is running towards Laboni bus-stop. To reach college she
has to change buses from either Hidco Crossing or Dharmatala. For that she would take
either bus A or bus B.Probability of getting into bus A, B are 3/7 , 4/7 . If she gets on bus A
coming from Karunamoyee , she would get bus 1 or 2 from Hidco crossing. Probability of
getting bus 1 from Hidco crossing is ⅖ , probability of getting bus 2 from Hidco crossing is
⅗. If she gets on bus B from Quality crossing and gets bus 1 or bus 3 from Dharmatala.
Probability of getting bus 1 from Dharmatala is ⅓, probability of getting bus 3 from
Dharmatala is 2/3

i)Tiki reaches college by bus 1. What is the probability that she caught bus B?

ii)What is the probability that she reaches college by bus 2?

120
4 Rubiya, Thaksh, Shanteri, and Lilly entered a spinning zone for a fun game, but there is a
twist: they don't know which spinner will appear on their screens until it is their turn to play.
They may encounter one of the following spinners, or perhaps even both. Spinners have
numbers 1 to 9 on those: Different combinations of numbers will lead to exciting prizes.
Below are some of the rewards they can win:

● Get the number '5', from Spinner A and '8' from Spinner B, and you'll win a music
player!

● You win a photo frame if Spinner A lands on a value greater than 4.

● You win an earplug if you get even in spinner A or odd in spinner B.

i)Thaksh spun both the spinners, A and B in one of his turns. What is the probability that
Thaksh wins a music player in that turn?

ii) Lilly spun spinner A in one of her turns. What is the probability that the number she got is
even given that it is a multiple of 3?

iii) Rubiya spun both the spinners. What is the probability that she wins a photo frame only?

Or

As Shanteri steps up to the screen, the game administrator reveals that she would see
either Spinner A or Spinner B for her turn, the probability of seeing Spinner A on the screen
is 65%, while that of Spinner B is 35%. What is the probability that Shanteri wins an earplug?

121