PROBABILITY

What is probability?

Probability is the measure of how likely

an event or outcome is.

Different events have different

probabilities!
 Sample Space

(A) Experiment
1. Anexperimentisaprocessoranactionin
makinganobservationtoobtainthe
requiredresults.
2. Theresultoftheexperimentiscalled
theoutcome
3. The letter S is used to represent the
sample space and all the possible
outcomes are written in brackets {}
(B)Listing all the possible outcomes of an
experiment
Example 1:

Sixcardsasshowninthediagramaboveareplacedin
abox.Acardisdrawnatrandomfromthebox.Listall
thepossibleoutcomes.
Solution:
AllthepossibleoutcomesareO,R,A,N,G,E.
 What is the probability that I
will choose a red marble?
In this bag of marbles, there are:

3 red marbles
2 white marbles

1 purple marble

4 green marbles
 Ask yourself the following
questions:
1. How many red marbles are in
the bag?
2. How many marbles are in the
3 bag IN ALL?

10
 A probability model has two components:
A SAMPLE SPACE and an assignment of
probabilities related with each OUTCOME.
This is denoted with S and is a set ***Each
whose elements are all the possibilities element of S
that can occur is called an
outcome.

A probability of an outcome is a number and

has two properties:

1. The probability assigned to each outcome is

nonnegative.

2. The sum of all the probabilities equals 1.

 Let's roll a die once.

This is the sample space---all the possible outcomes

S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
probability an
event will occur

Number of ways that E can occur

P E
Number of possibilities
What is the probability you will roll an even number?

There are 3 ways to get an even number, rolling a 2, 4 or 6

3 1
P Even number
6 2
There are 6 different numbers on the die.
 9

Example 2:
AletterischosenfromthewordGARDEN.
(a) Listallthepossibleoutcomes.
(b) Writethesamplespace,S,usingsetnotation.
 Solution

(A) THE POSSIBLE OUTCOMES ARE G, A, R, D, E AND N

(B) SAMPLE SPACE, S = { G, A, R, D, E, N }
 Events
(A) Elements of a Sample Space which Satisfy Given
Condition
Whenaspecificconditionisgiven,wecanlisttheelementsofa
samplespacewhichsatisfythegivencondition.

Example 1:
Atwo-digitnumberwhichisnotmorethan
25ischosenatrandom.Listtheelementsof
thesamplespacewhichsatisfyeachofthe
followingconditions.
(a) Aperfectsquareischosen.
(b) Aprimenumberischosen.
 Solution

Samplespace
={10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25}
(a)
Aperfectsquareischosen={16,25}

(b)
Aprimenumberischose={11,13,17,19,23}

 EVENTSFORASAMPLESPACE

Example 2:
Acoinandadiearethrownsimultaneously.The
eventsPandQaredefinedasfollows.
P=Eventofobtainingaheadsfromthecoinandan
oddnumberfromthedie.
Q=Eventofobtainingatailsfromthecoinanda
numbermorethan2fromthedie.
(a) Listthesamplespace,S.
(b) Listtheelementsof
(i) TheeventP,
(ii) TheeventQ.
 SOLUTION

Samplespace,S={(H,1),(H,2),(H,3),(H,4),(H,5),(H,6),(T,1),
(T,2),(T,3),(T,4),(T,5),(T,6)}
(b)(i) P={(H,1),(H,3),(H,5)}
(SetofoutcomesofEventP:obtainingaheadsfromthe
coinandanoddnumberfromthedie.)

(b)(ii)Q={(T,3),(T,4),(T,5),(T,6)}
(SetofoutcomesofEventQ:obtainingatailsfromthe
coinandanumbermorethan2fromthedie.)
 Probability of an Event
15

1.The probability of an event A, P(A) is given by

2.If P(A)=0, then the event A will certainly not occur.

3.If P(A)=1, then the event A will certainly to occur.
SOLUTION
 Expected Number of Times an Event
will Occur
IftheprobabilityofaneventAandthenumberof
trialsaregiven,thenthenumber of times
event A occurs=P(A) Number of trials

Example 2:
Inafootballtrainingsession,theprobabilitythat
Ahmadscoresagoalinatrialis.In40trialsare
chosenrandomly,howmanytimesisAhmad
expectedtoscoreagoal?

Solution:

NumberoftimesAhmadisexpectedtoscoreagoal
=40
=25
 SOLVINGPROBLEMS

Example 3:
Kelvinhas30white,blueandredhandkerchiefs.Ifa
handkerchiefispickedatrandom,theprobabilityof
pickingawhitehandkerchiefis25.Calculate
(a) thenumberofwhitehandkerchiefs.
(b) theprobabilityofpickingabluehandkerchiefif8
ofthehandkerchiefsareredincolour.

SOLUTION
 22

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