Hey!
I'm getting confused with the wording of these two probability questions;
The ratio of girls to boys at a school is four to five. Two students are surveyed at random from the school. Find the probability that the students are
a) both boys
b) a girl and a boy
c) at least one girl
I have attached the probability tree i have used and i'm pretty sure its correct.
I have a ratio of 4/9 for girls and 5/9 for boys
However, what im confused about; am I supposed to use the same ratio for both the first AND second step?
For a), I have been doing ( 5/9 x 4/8 ) to find the probability of 'both boys', because after you take one boy out doesn't it then lower the numerator and denominator and numerator for the next boy to be picked?
My answers were;
a) 5/18
b) 5/9
c) 13/18
The textbooks answers were;
a) 25/81
b) 40/81
c) 56/81
( It appears they do not change the ratio for each additional student picked)
Am I reading it wrong? I thought this question was like the lottery ticket questions where it is without replacement, because in those questions they don't specify 'without replacement' they just assume it, and I assumed in this question the student was not replaced for the next random survey.
The second question I have the exact same issue with;
The number of cats to dogs at a pet hotel is in the ratio of 4 to 7. If 3 pets are chosen at random, find the probability that
a) they are all dogs
b) just one is a dog
c) at least one is a cat
Same issue, with the answers keeping the same ratio throughout, but I thought you were supposed to remove an animal from the numerator and denominator at each animal chosen.
Thankyou!!
The question's wording is very hard to decrypt.
All we are saying is that the ratio of girls to boys at a school is 4:5.
But this doesn't mean there's only 9 students. Yes, if you treat it as exactly 9 students there, that's what you get.
But what if there's
900 students instead?
If the ratio of girls to boys at a school is 4:5, then there would be 400 girls and 500 boys.
So for a), technically the answer would be 500/900 * 499/899 now, right? Which is not equal to 5/9 * 4/8
The question is most certainly tricky, and the appearance of this sort of ambiguity is unlikely in the HSC. However, the ultimate purpose of this question is to not treat ratios as representative of the bigger picture - the total. Hence, the safest bet is to assume that in general, if we take one out, the ratio isn't varied much.
Note that something like 400:499 is approximately equal to 400:500 anyhow, which is 4:5. So since in general schools have quite a large population (and not just a mere 9 students), we assume that by choosing one, the ratio is not greatly disturbed (the disturbance is negligible).