Question 1:
Complete the following statements:
(i) Probability of an event E + Probability of the event ‘not E’ = _______.
(ii) The probability of an event that cannot happen is _________. Such as event is called _________.
(iii) The probability of an event that is certain to happen is _________. Such as event is called ________.
(iv) The sum of the probabilities of all the elementary events of an experiment is _________.
(v) The probability of an event is greater than or equal to _______ and less than or equal to _______.
Answer
(i) 1(ii) 0, impossible event
(iii) 1, sure event or certain event
(iv) 1
(v) 0, 1
Question 2:
Which of the following experiments have equally likely outcomes? Explain.
(i) A driver attempts to start a car. The car starts or does not start.
(ii) A player attempts to shoot a basketball. She/he shoots or misses the shot.
(iii) A trial is made to answer a true-false question. The answer is right or wrong.
(iv) A baby is born. It is a boy or a girl.
SOL.
(i) It is not an equally likely event, as it depends on various factors such as whether the car will start or not. And factors for both the conditions are not the same.
(ii) It is not an equally likely event, as it depends on the player’s ability and there is no information given about that.
(iii) It is an equally likely event.
(iv) It is an equally likely event.
Question 3:
Why is tossing a coin considered to be a fair way of deciding which team should get the ball at the beginning of a football game?
SOL.
When we toss a coin, the possible outcomes are only two, head or tail, which are equally likely outcomes. Therefore, the result of an individual toss is completely unpredictable.
Question 4:
Which of the following cannot be the probability of an event?
SOL.
Question 6:
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?
SOL.
(i) The bag contains lemon flavoured candies only. It does not contain any orange flavoured candies. This implies that every time, she will take out only lemon flavoured candies. Therefore, event that Malini will take out an orange flavoured candy is an impossible event.
Hence, P (an orange flavoured candy) = 0
(ii)As the bag has lemon flavoured candies, Malini will take out only lemon flavoured candies. Therefore, event that Malini will take out a lemon flavoured candy is a sure event.
P (a lemon flavoured candy) = 1
Question 7:
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?
SOL.
= 1 − 0.992
= 0.008
Question 8:
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?
(i) Total number of balls in the bag = 8
Question 9:
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?
SOL.
Total number of marbles = 5 + 8 + 4 = 17
Question 10:
A piggy bank contains hundred 50 p coins, fifty Rs 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?
Total number of coins in a piggy bank = 100 + 50 + 20 + 10
= 180
(i) Number of 50 p coins = 100
Question 11:
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 (see the given figure). What is the probability that the fish taken out is a male fish?
Total number of fishes in a tank
= Number of male fishes + Number of female fishes
= 5 + 8 = 13
SOL.
Question 12:
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 (see the given figure), 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?
SOL.
Question 13:
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.
SOL.
The possible outcomes when a dice is thrown = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
Number of possible outcomes of a dice = 6
(i) Prime numbers on a dice are 2, 3, and 5.
Total prime numbers on a dice = 3
Question 14:
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
SOL.
Total number of cards in a well-shuffled deck = 52
(i) Total number of kings of red colour = 2
Question 15:
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?
(i) Total number of cards = 5
Total number of queens = 1
SOL.
Question 16:
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.
SOL.
Total number of pens = 12 + 132 = 144
Total number of good pens = 132
Question 17:
(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?
SOL.
(i) Total number of bulbs = 20
Total number of defective bulbs = 4
Question 18:
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.
SOL.
Total number of discs = 90
(i) Total number of two-digit numbers between 1 and 90 = 81
Question 20:
Suppose you drop a die at random on the rectangular region shown in the given figure. What is the probability that it will land inside the circle with diameter 1 m?
SOL.
Question 21:
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?
Sol.
Total number of pens = 144
Total number of defective pens = 20
Total number of good pens = 144 − 20 = 124
Question 22:
Two dice, one blue and one grey, are thrown at the same time.
(i) Write down all the possible outcomes and complete the following table:
(ii) A student argues that ‘there are 11 possible outcomes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. 
(i) It can be observed that,
To get the sum as 2, possible outcomes = (1, 1)
To get the sum as 3, possible outcomes = (2, 1) and (1, 2)
To get the sum as 4, possible outcomes = (3, 1), (1, 3), (2, 2)
To get the sum as 5, possible outcomes = (4, 1), (1, 4), (2, 3), (3, 2)
To get the sum as 6, possible outcomes = (5, 1), (1, 5), (2, 4), (4, 2), (3, 3)
To get the sum as 7, possible outcomes = (6, 1), (1, 6), (2, 5), (5, 2),
(3, 4), (4, 3)
To get the sum as 8, possible outcomes = (6, 2), (2, 6), (3, 5), (5, 3), (4, 4)
To get the sum as 9, possible outcomes = (3, 6), (6, 3), (4, 5), (5, 4)
To get the sum as 10, possible outcomes = (4, 6), (6, 4), (5, 5)
To get the sum as 11, possible outcomes = (5, 6), (6, 5)
To get the sum as 12, possible outcomes = (6, 6)
(ii)Probability of each of these sums will not be 1/2 as these sums are not equally likely.
Question 23:
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.
SOL.
The possible outcomes are
{HHH, TTT, HHT, HTH, THH, TTH, THT, HTT}
Number of total possible outcomes = 8
Number of favourable outcomes = 2 {i.e., TTT and HHH}
Question 24:
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?
[Hint: Throwinga die twice and throwing two dice simultaneously are treated as the same experiment].
SOL.
Total number of outcomes = 6 × 6
= 36
(i)Total number of outcomes when 5 comes up on either time are (5, 1), (5, 2), (5, 3), (5, 4), (5, 5), (5, 6), (1, 5), (2, 5), (3, 5), (4, 5), (6, 5)
Hence, total number of favourable cases = 11
Question 25:
Which of the following arguments are correct and which are not correct? Give reasons for your answer.
(i) If two coins are tossed simultaneously there are three possible outcomes−−two heads, two tails or one of each. Therefore, for each of these outcomes, the probability is 1/3.
(ii) If a die is thrown, there are two possible outcomes- an odd number or an even number. Therefore, the probability of getting an odd number is 1/2.
SOL.
(i) Incorrect
When two coins are tossed, the possible outcomes are (H, H), (H, T), (T, H), and (T, T). It can be observed that there can be one of each in two possible ways − (H, T), (T, H).
Therefore, the probability of getting two heads is 1/4, the probability of getting two tails is 1/4, and the probability of getting one of each is1/2.
It can be observed that for each outcome, the probability is not1/3.
(ii) Correct
When a dice is thrown, the possible outcomes are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Out of these, 1, 3, 5 are odd and 2, 4, 6 are even numbers.
Therefore, the probability of getting an odd number is 1/2.