EXAMPLES ON PROBABILITIES

CONDITIOAL PROBABILITY
 EXAMPLE-1
• You are given that A and B are events
such that, , ,
• Find: , , , , .
 EXAMPLE- 2
• 100 students appeared for two
examinations. 60 passed the
first, 50 passed the second and
30 passed both. Find the
probability that a student
selected at random has failed in
both examinations.
 -3EXAMPLE

• A class consists of 6 girls and 10

boys. If a committee of 3 is chosen at
random from the class, find the
probability that
• (i) 3 boys are selected
(ii) at least one boy is selected
 EXAMPLE-4

• The three events , and are defined in the same

sample space. The events and are mutually
exclusive. The events and are independent.
• Given that , and , find
• (a)
• (b) .
 -5EXAMPLE
•A box contains 8 red, 3 white and 9 blue
balls. |If 3 balls are drawn at random
without replacement, determine the
probability that
• (i) all 3 are red. (ii) 2 are red and 1
is blue. (iii)one of each color is drawn.
 EXAMPLE-6
• A box contains 2 red and 3 blue
marbles. Find the probability that
if two marbles are drawn at
random (without replacement), (i)
both are blue, (ii) both are red,
(c) one is red and one is blue
 EXAMPLE-7

•If three fair coins are tossed, what is the probability

of getting at least two heads.
a)
)b
c)
d)
e)
 EXAMPLE-8
(Bayes' Theorem).
• A corporation has three methods of training employees. Because of time,
space, and location, it sends 20% of its employees to location A, 35% to
location B, and 45% to location C. Location A has an 80% success rate. That
is, 80% of the employees who complete the course will pass the licensing
exam. Location B has a 75% success rate, and location C has a 60% success
rate.
(i) Sketch a tree diagram.

(i) If a person has passed the exam, find the probability that the person went
to location B.
(ii) If a person failed the exam, find the probability that the person went to
location C.
 EXAMPLE-9
•

• Circle the correct answer to each of the following questions. Circle only
one answer.

• 1) Suppose the events and are mutually exclusive and . Then

• a)
• b)
• c) undefined
• d)
• e) None of the above
 EXAMPLE-10
• An experiment consists of rolling two fair dice. Then the
Probability of their sum
• being 10 equals.
• a)

• b)
• c)
• d)
• e)
 EXAMPLE-11

• Two events A and B are said to be independent if

• a)
• b)
• c)
• d)
• e) None of the above
 EXAMPLE-12
• Suppose the events and are such that and .

Then equals
• a)
• b) 0.4
• c) 0.6
• d) 0.8
• e) 0.5
 EXAMPLE-13

• Let be an event. Then

• a)
• b)
• c)
• d)
• e) None of the above
 EXAMPLE-14

• Companies produce 30% , 45% and 25% of the cars

respectively. It is known that
• 2% , 3% and 2% of the cars produced from and are defective.
• a) Produce a tree diagram of a randomly selected car.
• b) What is the probability that a car purchased is defective?
• c) If a car purchased is found to be defective, what is the
probability that this car is produced by company .
 EXAMPLE-15
• In a factory, machines and are all producing metal rods of the same length. Machine
produces 25% of the rods, machine produces 45% and the rest are produced by
machine . Of their production of rods, machines and produce 4%, 5% and 2%
defective rods respectively.
• i) Draw a tree diagram to represent this information.
• ii) Find the probability that a randomly selected rod is
• 1) produced by machine and is not defective
• 2) is not defective

• iii) Given that a randomly selected rod is not defective, find the
probability that it was produced by machine .
 EXAMPLE-16
• If and , and then the
• value of is
• a)

• b)
• c)
• d)
• e)
 EXAMPLE-17
• A businessman goes to hotels X, Y, Z 20%,
50%, 30% of the time, respectively. It is known
that 5%, 4%, 8% of the rooms in X, Y, Z
hotels have faulty plumbing.
• (a) Determine the probability that the
businessman goes to hotel with faulty
plumbing. (b) What is the probability that the
businessman's room having faulty plumbing is
assigned to hotel Z?
 EXAMPLE-18
• A factory has three machines , , producing large numbers of a
certain item. Of the total daily production of the item, 50% are
produced on , 30% on and 20% on . Records show that 2% of
items produced on are defective, 3% of items produced on
are defective and 4% of items produced on are defective. The
occurrence of a defective item is independent of all other
items.
• One item is chosen at random from a day's total output.
• a) Show that the probability of its being defective is 0.027.
• b) Given that it is defective, find the probability that is
was produced on machine .
 EXAMPLE-19
• When Albert eats in a certain restaurant, he always eats either chicken or beef for
his main course. And he always eats either sponge pudding or ice cream for
his dessert.

The probability that he eats chicken is , the probability that he eats ice cream given
that he eats chicken is , and the probability that he eats ice cream given that he eats beef is .

a) Find the probability that he eats either chicken or ice cream, but not
both.
b) Find the probability that he eats ice cream.
c) Find the probability that he has eaten chicken, given that he is eating ice
cream.
 EXAMPLE-20
• Companies produce 30% , 45% and 25% of the cars
respectively. It is known that 2% , 3% and 2% of the cars
produced from and are defective.
a) Produce a tree diagram of a randomly selected car.
b) What is the probability that a car purchased is
defective?
c) If a car purchased is found to be defective, what
is the probability that this car was produced by company
• : EXAMPLE-21

• A box contains 4 black and 6 red balls. A ball is drawn

from the box and is not replaced. A second ball is then
drawn. Find the probabilities of

• (i) red and red being drawn. (ii) black then red.

• (iii) red then black. (iv) black then black

• Solution: The probability tree and the probabilities

required are
• Partitions and Bayes Theorem

• A sample space S is partitioned into n subsets

provided:

• (a) The intersection of any two of the subsets is

empty.

• (b) Each subset is nonempty

• (c)
If B is any event in S, then

Since are mutually exclusive events, we have

or
A factory has four machines; the numbers of pieces per day by these •
machines are 1000 & 1200 & 1800 and 2000 respectively, the first
machine produces on the average 1% defective pieces, the second
0.5% , the third 0.5% and the fourth 1%. If a piece selected at
random is defective, what is the probability that is produced by the
?fourth machine

:Solution •

Let denote the events that the selected piece is produced by the •
first, the second, the third, and the fourth machine respectively, and
let D denotes the event that the selected piece is defective, then
 EXAMPLE-22

• From Bayes theorem

 EXAMPLE-23
• Three boxes are given as follows: Box I contains 10
light bulbs of which 4 are defective, box II contains
6 light bulbs of which 1 is defective, and box III
contains 8 light bulbs of which 3 are defective, a
bulb is selected at random and is found defective.
Find the probability that the selected bulb from box
III.
• Solution:

• Since and from a partition of S, then

• Let D be the event that a bulb is defective

• From Bayes theorem

• 7- Events from a partition of a sample space S with
and . If B is an event in S with and , find

• 8- In a human population 51% are male and 49% are

female. 5% of the males and 0.3% of the females are
color-blind. If a person randomly chosen from the
population is found to be color-blind, what is the
probability that the person is a male?