PROBABILITY

MAIN CONCEPTS AND RESULTS

** PROBABILITY : Probability is a concept which numerically measures the degree of certainty of the
occurrence of events.
**EXPERIMENT : An operation which can produce some well-defined outcomes is called an experiment.
**RANDOM EXPERIMENT : An experiment in which all possible outcomes are known, and the exact
outcome cannot be predicted in advance, is called a random experiment.
**EVENT : The collection of all or some of the possible outcomes is called an event.
**EQUALLY LIKELY EVENTS : A given number of events are said to be equally likely if none of them
is expected to occur in preference to the others.
**PROBABILITY OF OCCURRENCE OF AN EVENT : Probability of occurrence of an event E,

denoted by P(E) is defined as: PE  

number of outcomes favourable to E
total number of possible outcomes
** SURE EVENT : The sure event is defined as an event which always happens. Hence, the probability of a
sure event is always 1.
6
For example, in single throw of a die, P(getting a number  7) = = 1.
6
**IMPOSSIBLE EVENT : An event which is impossible to occur, is called an impossible event. The
probability of impossible event is always zero.
0
For example, in single throw of a die, P(getting 7) = = 0.
6
**COMPLEMENTARY EVENT : Let E be an event and (not E) be an event which occurs only when E
does not occur. We denote (not E) by E′, or E , called complement of event E.
The event (not E) is called the complementary event of E.
P(E) + P(not E) = 1. ∴ P(E) = 1 − P(not E).
** SOME IMPORTANT EXPERIMENTS
* Tossing a coin When we throw a coin, either a head (H) or a tail (T) appears on the upper face.
* Throwing a die A die is a solid cube, having 6 faces, marked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, or having 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and
6 dots. In throwing a die, the outcome is the number or number of dots appearing on the uppermost face.
The plural of die is dice.
* Drawing a card from a well-shuffled deck of 52 cards.
A deck of playing cards has in all 52 cards.
(i) It has 13 cards each of four suits, namely spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds.
 (a) Cards of spades and clubs are black cards. (b) Cards of hearts and diamonds are red cards.
Kings, queens and jacks are known as face cards. Therefore, there are in all 12 face cards.

QUESTIONS FROM NCERT BOOKS 

1. A bag contains lemon flavoured candies only. Malini takes out one candy without looking into the bag.
What is the probability that she takes out (i) an orange flavoured candy? (ii) a lemon flavoured candy?

2. It is given that in a group of 3 students, the probability of 2 students not having the same birthday is 0.992.
What is the probability that the 2 students have the same birthday?

3. A bag contains 3 red balls and 5 black balls. A ball is drawn at random from the bag. What is the
probability that the ball drawn is (i) red ? (ii) not red?

4. A box contains 5 red marbles, 8 white marbles and 4 green marbles. One marble is taken out of the box at
random. What is the probability that the marble taken out will be (i) red ? (ii) white ? (iii) not green?

5. A piggy bank contains hundred 50p coins, fifty Re 1 coins, twenty Rs 2 coins and ten Rs 5 coins. If it is
equally likely that one of the coins will fall out when the bank is turned upside down, what is the
probability that the coin (i) will be a 50 p coin ? (ii) will not be a Rs 5 coin?

6. Gopi buys a fish from a shop for his aquarium. The shopkeeper
takes out one fish at random from a tank containing 5 male fish and
8 female fish . What is the probability that the fish taken out is a
male fish?

7. A game of chance consists of spinning an arrow which comes to rest pointing at

one of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and these are equally likely outcomes.
What is the probability that it will point at
(i) 8 ? (ii) an odd number?
(iii) a number greater than 2? (iv) a number less than 9?

8. A die is thrown once. Find the probability of getting

(i) a prime number; (ii) a number lying between 2 and 6; (iii) an odd number.
9. One card is drawn from a well-shuffled deck of 52 cards. Find the probability of getting
 (i) a king of red colour (ii) a face card (iii) a red face card
(iv) the jack of hearts (v) a spade (vi) the queen of diamonds

10. Five cards—the ten, jack, queen, king and ace of diamonds, are well-shuffled with their
face downwards. One card is then picked up at random.
(i) What is the probability that the card is the queen?
(ii) If the queen is drawn and put aside, what is the probability that the second card picked up is
(a) an ace? (b) a queen?

11. 12 defective pens are accidentally mixed with 132 good ones. It is not possible to just look at a pen and
tell whether or not it is defective. One pen is taken out at random from this lot. Determine the probability
that the pen taken out is a good one.

12. (i) A lot of 20 bulbs contain 4 defective ones. One bulb is drawn at random from the lot. What is the
probability that this bulb is defective?
(ii) Suppose the bulb drawn in (i) is not defective and is not replaced. Now one bulb is drawn at random
from the rest. What is the probability that this bulb is not defective ?

13. A box contains 90 discs which are numbered from 1 to 90. If one disc is drawn at random from the box,
find the probability that it bears
(i) a two-digit number (ii) a perfect square number (iii) a number divisible by 5.

14. A child has a die whose six faces show the letters as given below:

The die is thrown once. What is the probability of getting (i) A? (ii) D?

15. A lot consists of 144 ball pens of which 20 are defective and the others are good. Nuri will buy a pen if it
is good, but will not buy if it is defective. The shopkeeper draws one pen at random and gives it to her.
What is the probability that (i) She will buy it ? (ii) She will not buy it ?

16. A game consists of tossing a one rupee coin 3 times and noting its outcome each time. Hanif wins if all
the tosses give the same result i.e., three heads or three tails, and loses otherwise. Calculate the probability
that Hanif will lose the game.

17. A die is thrown twice. What is the probability that

(i) 5 will not come up either time? (ii) 5 will come up at least once?
 ANSWERS

3. i  , ii 
3 5
1. (i) 0 (ii) 1 2. 0.008
8 8

4. i  ii 8 iii13 5. i  ii 17

5 5 5
6.
17 17 17 9 18 13

8. i  , ii  , iii
1 1 3 1 1 1
7. (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) 1
8 2 4 2 2 2

9. i  ii 3 iii 3 iv 1 v  1 vi  1

1
26 13 26 52 4 52

10. i  , iia  b 0
1 1 11 1 15
11. 12. ,
5 4 12 5 19

13. i  ii iii 1 14. i  ii 1

9 1 1 11
15.
10 10 5 3 6 12

17. i  i  11
3 25
16.
4 36 36