PROBABILITY PRACTICE PROBLEMS

1. On a six-sided die, each side has a number between 1 and 6. What is the probability of throwing a 3 or a
4?
A. 1 in 6 C. 1 in 2
B. 1 in 3 D. 1 in 4
Answer: B: On a six-sided die, the probability of throwing any number is 1 in 6. The probability of throwing a 3
or a 4 is double that, or 2 in 6. This can be simplified by dividing both 2 and 6 by 2.
2. Three coins are tossed up in the air, one at a time. What is the probability that two of them will land
heads up and one will land tails up?
A. 0 C. 1/4
B. 1/8 D. 3/8
Answer: D: Shown below is the sample space of possible outcomes for tossing three coins, one at a time. Since
there is a possibility of two outcomes (heads or tails) for each coin, there is a total of 2*2*2=8 possible
outcomes for the three coins altogether. Note that H represents heads and T represents tails:
HHH HHT HTT HTH TTT TTH THT THH

Notice that out of the 8 possible outcomes, only 3 of them (HHT, HTH, and THH) meet the desired condition
that two coins land heads up and one coin lands tails up. Probability, by definition, is the number of desired
outcomes divided by the number of possible outcomes. Therefore, the probability of two heads and one tail is
3/8, Choice D.

3. A two-digit number is chosen at random. What is the probability that the chosen number is a multiple of
7?
A. 1/10
B. 1/9
C. 11/90
D. 12/90
E. 13/90
Answer: E: There are 90 two-digit numbers (all integers from 10 to 99). Of those, there are 13 multiples of 7:
14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70, 77, 84, 91, 98.
4. A bag contains 14 blue, 6 red, 12 green, and 8 purple buttons. 25 buttons are removed from the bag
randomly. How many of the removed buttons were red if the chance of drawing a red button from the bag is
now 1/3?
A. 0
B. 1
C. 3
D. 5
E. 6
Answer: B: Add the 14 blue, 6 red, 12 green, and 8 purple buttons to get a total of 40 buttons. If 25 buttons
are removed, 15 buttons are remaining in the bag. If the chance of drawing a red button is now 1/3, then 5 of
the 15 buttons remaining must be red. The original total of red buttons was 6. So, one red button was
removed.
5. There are 6 blue marbles, 3 red marbles, and 5 yellow marbles in a bag. What is the probability of
selecting a blue or red marble on the first draw?
A. 1/3
B. 4/7
C. 8/14
D. 9/14
E. 11/14
D: Use this ratio for probability:
Probability = Number of Desired Outcomes

Number of Possible Outcomes: There are 6 blue marbles and 3 red marbles for a total of 9 desired outcomes.
Add the total number of marbles to get the total number of possible outcomes, 14. The probability that a red
or blue marble will be selected is 9/14.

6. Using a six-sided die, Carlin has rolled a six on each of 4 successive tosses. What is the probability of Carlin
rolling a six on the next toss?
A. 1/2
 B. 1/4
C. 1/6
D. 1/30
E. 1/3125
Answer: C: The outcomes of previous rolls do not affect the outcomes of future rolls. There is one desired
outcome and six possible outcomes. The probability of rolling a six on the fifth roll is 1/6, the same as the
probability of rolling a six on any given individual roll.
7. A regular deck of cards has 52 cards. Assuming that you do not replace the card you had drawn before the
next draw, what is the probability of drawing three aces in a row?
A. 1 in 52
B. 1 in 156
C. 1 in 2000
D. 1 in 5525
E. 1 in 132600
Answer: D: The probability of getting three aces in a row is the product of the probabilities for each draw. For
the first ace, that is 4 in 52 or 1 in 13; for the second, it is 3 in 51 or 1 in 27; and for the third, it is 2 in 50 or 1 in
25. So, the overall probability, P, is P=1/13*1/17*1/25=1/5,525
8. An MP3 player is set to play songs at random from the fifteen songs it contains in memory. Any song can
be played at any time, even if it is repeated. There are 5 songs by Band A, 3 songs by Band B, 2 by Band C,
and 5 by Band D. If the player has just played two songs in a row by Band D, what is the probability that the
next song will also be by Band D?
A. 1 in 5
B. 1 in 3
C. 1 in 9
D. 1 in 27
E. Not enough data to determine.
Answer: B: The probability of playing a song by a particular band is proportional to the number of songs by
that band divided by the total number of songs, or 5/15=1/3 for B and D. The probability of playing any
particular song is not affected by what has been played previously, since the choice is random and songs may
be repeated.
9. Referring again to the MP3 player described in Question 8, what is the probability that the next two songs
will both be by Band B?
A. 1 in 25
B. 1 in 3
C. 1 in 5
D. 1 in 9
E. Not enough data to determine.
Answer: A: Since 3 of the 15 songs are by Band B, the probability that any one song will be by that band is
3/15=1/5. The probability that the next two songs are by Band B is equal to the product of two probabilities,
where each probability is that the next song is by Band B: 1/5*1/5=1/25 The same probability of 1/5 may be
multiplied twice because whether or not the first song is by Band B has no impact on whether the second song
is by Band B. They are independent events.
10. If a bag of balloons consists of 47 white balloons, 5 yellow balloons, and 10 black balloons, what is the
approximate likelihood that a balloon chosen randomly from the bag will be black?
A. 19% C. 21%
B. 16% D. 33%
B: First, calculate the total number of balloons in the bag: 47 + 5 + 10 = 62.
Ten of these are black, so divide this number by 62. Then, multiply by 100 to express the probability as a
percentage: 10 / 62 = 0.16, therefore, 0.16 100 = 16%

11. In a lottery game, there are 2 winners for every 100 tickets sold on average. If a man buys 10 tickets,
what is the probability that he is a winner?
A. 21.5% C. 18.3%
B. 20% D. 2%
Answer: C: First, simplify the winning rate. If there are 2 winners for every 100 tickets, there is 1 winner for
every 50 tickets sold. This can be expressed as a probability of 1/50 or 0.02. To account for the (unlikely)
scenarios of more than a single winning ticket, calculate the probability that none of the tickets win and then
subtract that from 1. There is a probability of 49/50 that a given ticket will not win. For all ten to lose that
would be (49/50)^(10) ≈ 0.817. Therefore, the probability that at least one ticket wins is 1 − 0.817 = 0.183 or
about 18.3%.