X-MATHEMATICS

CHAPTER – 15
PROBABILITY
CLASS DISCUSSION AND HOME WORKSHEET

Probability is a quantitative measure of certainty.

Random experiment: An experiment, whose outcomes cannot be predicted in advance.
Events: Outcomes associated with experiment is called event.
The probability of an event ‘E’ is denoted as P(E) is defined as
𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝐸
𝑃(𝐸) =
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠
The probability of a sure event (or certain event) is 1.
The probability of an impossible event is 0.
Probability of an event always lies between 0 and 1.
The total probability of all the elementary event is 1.
For any event 𝐸, 𝑃(𝐸) + 𝑃(𝐸) = 1, where 𝐸 stands for ‘not E’. E and 𝐸 are called
complimentary events.
15.1 Class Discussion Questions
1. Find the probability of getting a head when a coin is tossed once. Also find the probability of
getting a tail.
2. A bag contains a red ball, a blue ball and a yellow ball, all the balls being of the same size.
Kritika takes out a ball from the bag without looking into it. What is the probability that she
takes out the (i) yellow ball? (ii) red ball? (iii) blue ball?
3. Suppose we throw a die once.
(i) What is the probability of getting a number greater than 4?
(ii) What is the probability of getting a number less than or equal to 4?
(iii) What is the probability of getting a number which is even prime.
4. Savita and Hamida are friends. What is the probability that both will have (i) different birthdays?
(ii) the same birthday? (ignoring a leap year).
5. Two players, Sangeeta and Reshma, play a tennis match. It is known that the probability of
Sangeeta winning the match is 0.62. What is the probability of Reshma winning the match?
6. If the probability of winning a game is 0.7, what is the probability of losing it?
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?
8. 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?
9. A letter is chosen at random from the letters of the word ‘ASSASSINATION’. Find the
probability that the letter chosen is a (i) vowel and (ii) constant.
10. A child has a die whose six faces shows as given below.

The die is thrown once. What is the probability of getting (i) A and (ii) D?
11. A carton consists of 100 shirts of which 88 are good, 8 have mirror defects and 4 have major
defects. Jimmy, a trader, will only accept the shirts which are good, but Sujatha, another trader
will only reject the shirts which have major defects. One shirt is drawn at random from the carton.
What is the probability that:
(i) it is acceptable to Jimmy? (ii) It is acceptable to Sujata?
12. A defective pen are accidently 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.
13. There are 40 students in class X of a school of whom 25 are girls and 15 are boys. The class
teacher has to select one student as a class representative. He writes the name of each students
on a separate card, the card being identical. Then she puts cards in a bag and stirs them
thoroughly. She then draws one card from the bag. What is the probability that the name written
on the card is the name of (i) a girl (ii) a boy?
14. A bag contains 3 red balls, 5 black balls and 4 white balls. A ball is drawn at random from the
bag. What is the probability that the ball is drawn is
(i) white (ii) red (iii) black (iv) not red?
15. A bag contains 4 red 5 black and 6 white balls. A ball is drawn from the bag at random. Find the
probability that the ball drawn is,
(i) red (ii) white (iii) not black (d) red or white
16. A bag contains 5 red, 8 white and 7 black balls. A ball is drawn at random from the bag. Find
the probability that the drawn balls are,
(i) red or white (ii) not black and (iii) neither white nor black
17. A bag contains 5 white balls, 7 red balls, 4 black balls and 2 blue balls. One ball is drawn at
random from the bag. What is the probability that the ball drawn is
(i) white or blue (ii) red or black
(iii) not white and (iv) neither white nor black
18. A bag contains 5 red balls and some blue balls. If the probability of drawing a blue ball is
double that of a red ball, find the number of blue balls in the bag.
19. A bag contains 12 balls out of which 𝒙 are white.
(i) If one balls is drawn at random, what is the probability that it will be a white ball?
(ii) If 6 more white ball are put in the bag, the probability of drawing a white ball will be
double than that in question (i) find 𝒙.
20. A bag contains 5 red balls and some blue balls. If the probability of drawing a blue ball
from the bag is thrice that of a red ball, find the number of blue balls in the bag.
21. A box contains 12 balls of which some are red in colour. If 6 more red balls are put in the
box and a ball is drawn at random, the probability of drawing a red ball double than what
it was before. Find the number of red balls in the bag.
22. A jar contains 24 marbles some are green and others are blue. If a marble is drawn at
𝟐
random from the jar, the probability that it is green is 𝟑. Find the number of blue marbles
in the jar.
23. A bag contains 5 yellow balls and some green balls. If the probability of drawing a green
ball is double that of a yellow ball, determine the number of green balls.
24. The probability of selecting a red ball at random from a jar that contains only red, blue and
1 1
orange balls is 4. The probability of selecting a blue ball at random from the same jar is 3. If the
jar contains 10 orange balls, find the total number of balls in the jar.
25. Tickets numbered from 1 to 20 are mixed up and a ticket is drawn at random. What is the
probability that the ticket drawn has a number which is a multiple of 3 or 7?
26. There are 30 cards of same size, in a bag on which numbers 1 to 30 are written. One card is taken
out of the bag at random. Find the probability that the number on the selected card is not divisible
by 3.
27. 15 cards numbered 1,2,3,…,15 are put in a box and mixed thoroughly. A card is drawn at random
from the box. Find the probability that the card drawn bears.
(i) an even number (ii) a number divisible by 2 or 3
28. A box contains 19 balls bearing numbers 1,2,3,…..,19. A ball is drawn at random from the box.
What is the probability that the number of the ball is,
(i) a prime number (ii) divisible by 3 or 5
(iii) neither divisible by 5 nor by 10 (iv) an even number
29. Find the probability that a number selected at random from the numbers 1,2,3,….,35 is a
(i) prime number (ii) multiple of 7 (iii) multiple of 3 or 5
30. A bag contains card which are numbered from 2 to 90. A card is drawn at random from
the bag. Find the probability that it bears (i) a two-digit number (ii) a number which is a
perfect square.
31. Cards marked with numbers 3,4,5,….,50 are placed in a box and mixed thoroughly. One card is
drawn at random from the box. Find the probability that number on the drawn card is
(i) divisible by 7 (ii) a number which is a perfect square
32. Card with numbers 14,14,15,…..60 are placed in a box and mixed thoroughly. One card is
drawn at random from the box. Find the probability that number on the card drawn is
(i) divisible by 5 (ii) a number is a perfect square
33. Harpreet tosses two different coins simultaneously (say one is of Re 1 and other of Rs 2).
What is the probability that she gets at least one head?
34. Two unbiased coins are tossed simultaneously. Find the probability of getting
(i) two heads (ii) one head (iii) at most one head
(iv) at least one head (v) no head
35. Three different coins are tossed together. Find the probability of getting
(i) At-least two heads (ii) At most two heads (iii) Exactly two heads
36. Two dice are drawn simultaneously. What is the probability that:
(a) 5 will not come up on either of them. (b) 5 will come up on at least one.
(c) 5 will come up at both dice
37. Two dice are thrown simultaneously. Find the probability of getting
(a) an even number as the sum (b) the sum as a prime number
(c) a total of at least 10 (d) a doublet of even number
(e) 5 will come up on at least one (f) a multiple of 3 as sum
(g) a doublet (h) a total of 6
(i) sum of the numbers appearing is less or equal to 12
(j) a multiple of 2 on one dice and multiple of 3 on the other
(k) a total more than 9
38. One card is drawn from a well-shuffled deck of 52 cards. Calculate the probability that the card
will (i) be an ace, (ii) not be an ace.
39. A card is drawn at random from a pack of 52 cards. Find the probability that the card drawn is
(i) a black king (ii) either a black card or a king
(iii) a jack, queen or a king (iv) neither an ace nor a king
(v) neither a red card nor a queen
40. From a pack of 52 playing card jack queens and kings and aces of red colour are removed. From
the remaining, a card is drawn at random. Find the probability that the card drawn is
(i) a black queen (ii) a red card (iii) a black jack
(iv) a face card (v) a king (vi) a red king
41. Find the probability that a leap year selected at random will contain 53 Sundays.
42. A number 𝑥 is chosen from the numbers −5, −4, −3, −2, −1,0,1,2,3,4,5. What is the probability
that |𝑥| < 4.
43. Two dice are thrown together. What is the probability of getting
(i) Both numbers are powers of 2
(ii) Both numbers are perfect squares
44. A card is drawn at random from a well-shuffled deck of 52 cards find the probability of getting
neither a red card nor a queen.
45. A bag contains 24 balls out of which 𝑥 are white. If one ball is drawn at random the probability
of drawing white ball is 𝑦. 12 more white balls are added to the bag. Now if a ball is drawn from
5
the bag, the probability of drawing the white ball is 3 𝑦, find the value of 𝑥.
46. A bag contains 5 red balls and some blue balls. The probability of drawing a blue ball from the
bag is thrice that of a red ball, find the number of blue balls in the bag.
47. A missing helicopter is reported to have crashed somewhere in the rectangular region shown
figure below. What is the probability that it crashed inside the lake shown in the figure?

48. Suppose you drop a die at random on the rectangular region shown in figure below. What is the
probability that it will land inside the circle with diameter 1m?

49. 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 (figure below), 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?