Probability

Third Semester, Assam Engineering College

August 2025

1. What is the probability of choosing a leap year that has 53 Sundays?

Solution: A leap year contains 52 complete years and two extra days. The
remaining two days can be arranged as follows:

{Su,Mo}, {Mo,Tu}, {Tu,We}, {We,Th}, {Th,Fr}, {Fr,Sat}, {Sat,Su}.

among all these possibilities, two of them contain Sunday. So the required
probability is 2/7.

2. A Coin is tossed two times. What is the probability of getting atleast one
head or one tail ?
Solution: (Observe that whenever a coin is tossed, we must get atleast one
head or one tail. So the probability is 1. The mathematical formulation is given
below.)
Let A be the event of getting atleast one head and B be the event of getting
atleast one tail. The required probability is given by P (A∪B). (Since the events
are connected by or.) Thus by additive law of probability,

P (A ∪ B) = P (A) + P (B) − P (A ∩ B)
3 3 1
= + −
4 4 2
= 1.

Remark: Observe that P (A∩B) ̸= 0; implying that the events are not mutually
exclusive. Moreover, P (A ∩ B) ̸= P (A)P (B); implying that the events are
dependent.
3. An urn contains 2 white and 3 black balls. Two balls is drawn at random.
What is the probability of getting

(i) atleast one white ball.

(ii) exactly one white ball.
(iii) atmost one white ball.

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 Solution: In the urn, we have 5 balls in total. From 5 balls,two balls can be
chosen in 5 C2 different ways. (i) Atleast one ball can be drawn in two different
ways. Either we get one white and one black ball, or we get two white balls.
So the required probability is given by
2
C1 ×3 C1 2
C2
5C
+ 5C
.
2 2

(ii) To draw exactly one white ball, we have to draw one white and one black
ball. So the required probability is given by
2
C1 ×3 C1
5C
.
2

(iii) Two draw atmost one white ball, we again have two possibilities. We have
to draw one white and one black ball, or we have to draw two black balls. So
the required probability is
2
C1 ×3 C1 3
C2
5C
+ 5C
.
2 2

4. An urn contains n white and n black balls. Two balls are drawn repeatedly
until the urn becomes empty. What is the probability of getting exactly one
white and one black ball at each draw?
Solution: (Unlike the previous question, we repeat the process more than
once.) At first the bag had 2n number of balls, among which 2 balls can be
chosen in 2n C2 ways. Also, one white and one black ball n
can
n
be choosen in
1 × C1
n
C1 ×n C1 ways. So the required probability is given by C2n C2 .
After the first draw, Two balls can be chosen from the remaining 2n − 2 balls in
2n−2
C2 ways. Also, exactly one white ball and one black ball can be chosen in
n−1
C1 ×n−1 C1 ways.(Observe that we had only n − 1 possibilities for white and
n − 1 possibilities for black balls after the first draw to choose.) So the required
n−1
C1 ×n−1 C1
probability in the second draw is 2n−2 C
2
.
Repeating the process for n times, we get the required probability as
n
C 1 ×n C 1 n−1
C1 ×n−1 C1 2
C1 ×2 C1 1
C1 ×1 C1
2n C
× 2n−2 C
× · · · × 4C
× 2C
.
2 2 2 2

(Try to obtain a reduced form of the solution.)

5. Two dies are rolled. What is the probability of
(i) Getting the sum of digits as 7 if the first die shows a 6.
(ii) Getting the first die as 6 if the sum of digits is equal to 3.
Solution: Whenever two dies are rolled, there are 36 possible outcomes.
Let A be the event of getting the sum of digits as 7 and B be the event

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 of showing the first die as 6. There are 6 possibilities of getting the sum
of digits as 7 and 6 possibilities of showing the first die as 6. Thus,

P (A∩B) 1/36
(i) Required Probability, P (A|B) = P (B) = 1/6 = 1/6.
P (A∩B) 1/36
(ii) Required Probability, P (B|A) = P (A) = 1/6 = 1/6.

6. The Probability of happening in a fight in Pyro is 14 . The probability

of happening a fight and the program is getting cancelled is 18 . What is the
probability of the program getting cancelled if there is a fight?
solution: Let A be the event of happening a fight and B be the event of
program getting cancelled. So the required probability is,
P (A ∩ B) 1/8
P (B|A) = = = 1/2.
P (A) 1/4
7. A coin is tossed 5 times. What is the probability of getting all heads if
the first three coins show consecutive heads?
Solution: Whenever a coin is tossed n times, we have 2n possible outcomes.
So in this case, we have 32 possibilities. Among them, only 4 will correspond to
the event of obtaining three consecutive heads in the first three attempts and
only 1 will correspond to the event of getting all heads. So, if A be the event of
getting all heads and B be the event of getting three consecutive heads in the
first three attempts, then

P (A) = 1/32, P (B) = 4/32.

Thus, Required probability, P (A|B) = P P(A∩B) 1/32

(B) = 4/32 = 1/4.
8. Three students A, B, and C are attempting a single problem indepen-
dently whose chance of solving it are 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 respectively. What is
the probability that the question will be solved.
Solution: Let A, B, C are the events of solving the problem by A, B, C
respectively.
P (A) = 1/2, P (B) = 1/3, P (C) = 1/4.
Thus, Required Probability is given by

P (A∪B∪C) = P (A)+P (B)+P (C)−P (A∩B)−P (B∩C)−P (C∩A)+P (A∩B∩C)

Since A, B, C are independent, so

P (A ∩ B) = P (A).P (B), P (B ∩ C) = P (B).P (C), P (C ∩ A) = P (C).P (A),

P (A ∩ B ∩ C) = P (A).P (B).P (C).

Now, plug the values to get the result.
9. Two friends A and B are applying for a job having two vacancies. The
probability that A will be selected is 1/5 and the probability that B will be
selected is 1/6. What is the probability that

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 (i) Atleast one of them is selected?
(ii) Both of them is selected?
(iii) Exactly one of them is selected?
(iv) None of them is selected?

Solution: Observe that as there are two vacancies, selection of A does not ef-
fect the selection of B and vice versa. So selection of A and selection of B are
independent events. Let A and B are the events of the selections of A AND B
respectively.

(i) Required Probability, P (A ∪ B) = P (A) + P (B) − P (A ∩ B) = P (A) +

P (B) − P (A).P (B)

(ii) Required Probability, P (A ∩ B) = P (A).P (B)

(iii) Required Probability, P (A\B) + P (B\A) = P (A) − P (A ∩ B) + P (B) −

P (A ∩ B)

Note: Exactly one of them is selected implies Exactly A is selected or Ex-

actly B is selected.

(iv) Observe that none of them is selected is actually complement of the

event where atleast one of them is selected. So, Required Probability is equal
to 1 − P (A ∪ B).

10. Assume that Civil Engineering department of AEC has purchased 100
Laptops, among them 50 are HCL, 20 are HP and 30 are ACER laptops. In this
collection, 12 HCL laptops, 6 HP laptops, and 9 ACER laptops are defective.
One laptop is chosen at random.
(i) What is the probability that the laptop is defective ?
(ii) If the chosen laptop is defective, what is the probability that it is an HP
laptop ?

Solution: Let E1 , E2 , E3 are the events of choosing an HCL laptop, HP laptop

and ACER laptop respectively. Here,

P (E1 ) = 50/100 = 1/2, P (E2 ) = 20/100 = 1/5, P (E3 ) = 30/100 = 3/10.

Let, A be the event that the laptop is defective. Observe that {E1 , E2 , E3 }
are mutually exclusive and A ⊆ E1 ∪ E2 ∪ E3 . Also given ,

P (A|E1 ) = 12/50 = 6/25, P (A|E2 ) = 6/20 = 3/10, P (A|E3 ) = 9/30 = 3/10.

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 (i) By Total Probability Theorem, P (A) = P (A|E1 )P (E1 )+P (A|E2 )P (E2 )+
P (A|E3 )P (E3 ).
P (A|E2 )P (E2 )
(ii) By Baye’s Theorem, P (E2 |A) = P (A) .

Plug the values to obtain the solution.

11. In a test, a student either guesses or copies or knows answer to an MCQ

with four choices. The probability that he makes a guess is 1/3 and that he
copies the answer is 1/6. The probability that his answer is correct given that
he copied it is 1/8. Find the probability that he knew the answer to the question
given that he correctly answered.
Solution: Let E1 , E2 , E3 be the events that the student guesses, copies and
knows the answer respectively. Let A be the event that the student correctly
answers it. Observe that {E1 , E2 , E3 } are mutually exclusive and A ⊆ E1 ∪
E2 ∪ E3 . Given, P (E1 ) = 1/3, P (E2 ) = 1/6, P (A|E2 ) = 1/8.
Note that E1 , E2 , E3 are exhaustive, so E1 ∪ E2 ∪ E3 = S. Thus,

P (E1 ∪ E2 ∪ E3 ) = 1.
=⇒ P (E1 ) + P (E2 ) + P (E3 ) = 1
=⇒ P (E3 ) = 1 − 1/3 − 1/6 = 1/2.

Also, P (A|E1 ) = 1/4 (since the student should guess among 4 options, only one
of which will be correct.)
P (A|E2 ) = 1. (Since the student will definitely choose the correct answer if he
knows the solution.)
Thus, Required Probability

P (A|E3 )P (E3 )
P (E3 |A) = .
P (A|E1 )P (E1 ) + P (A|E2 )P (E2 ) + P (A|E3 )P (E3 )

Plug the values to get the solution.