Question:
Select a card from the deck. What is the probability that this card will be red? Show the number of expected outcomes versus the number of total possible outcomes. What type of event does this represent?
First of all, can you explain/answer this probability problem for me? While I think I understand how to determine the probability, I don't know how I to best 'show' the number of expected outcomes versus the number of total possible outcomes in this problem? Also, this is what would be called a 'simple event'; Am I right?
Thanks,
Heidi
Hi Heidi,
If you are drawing one card from a normal deck of cards then the number of possible outcomes is 52 since there are 52 cards in the deck. You are looking at the event of drawing a red card. The words we sometimes use are favorable and unfavorable. An outcome is favorable if it meets the desired condition, here being red, and unfavorable if it doesn't meet the condition. The probability of the event occurring is then the number of favorable outcomes divided by the number of possible outcomes. In your example there are 26 red cards and hence 26 favorable outcomes and thus
the probability of selecting a red card
= (number of favorable outcomes)/(number of possible outcomes)
= 26/52 = 1/2.
As to what kind of event this is I am not sure what is expected. It is a random event since there is chance involved. You might call it simple but we usually only use that term with an experiment that is repeated a number of times. If you roll dice five times then "the simple experiment" is rolling the dice once and "the experiment" is rolling the dice five times.
Penny