What is the probability that one student, selected at random from the college, will be an econ major? What is the probability that one student, selected at random from the college, will be a female?What is the probability that one student, selected at random from the college, will be both an econ major and a female? What is the probability that two students, both selected at random, will both be econ majors? What is the probability that two students, both selected at random, will both be econ majors?
Patricia P. answered • 09/27/19
Associate’s Degree Holder Who Succeeded on Accuplacer
Smith,
The probabilities for the first two questions are basically given to us: If 40% of students in this college are Econ majors, the probability that any random student chosen from this college is an Econ major is 40% (or you can express that as 40/100 or 2/5, or .4)
We are also given that 60% of students in this college are male so naturally 40% are female and this gives us the same probability as the last question.
The probability that a student is an Econ major AND a female is found by multiplying the probability for each of these things (40% * 40% = 16%). This should make intuitive sense because as you get more specific, the chances are becoming smaller - chance of an Econ major is 40% but chance of a female Econ major is only 16%.
If the chance of picking an Econ major is 40%, the chance of picking two Econ majors is 40%^2 and the chance of finding n Econ majors is 40%^n.
Hope this helps!
