Question

Consider the gender and class make-up of students at a large university by gender and status as given in the table.

What is (Female | Undergraduate)? Give your answer to three decimal places.

Answer 1

0.589

Explanation:

THis is a conditional probability question. Let's look at the formula first:

P (A | B) = P(A∩B)/P(B)

" | " means "given that".

So, it means, the "Probabilty A given that B is equal to Probability A intersection B divided by probability of B."

So we want to know P (Female | Undergraduate ). This in formula is:

P (Female | Undergraduate) = P (Female ∩ Undergraduate)/P(Undergraduate)

Now,

P (Female ∩ Undergraduate) means what is common in both female and undergraduate? There are 43% female that are undergrads. Hence,

P (Female ∩ Undergraduate) = 0.43

Also,

P (Undergraduate) is how many undergrads are there? There are 73% undergrads, so that is P (undergraduate) = 0.73

plugging into the formula we get:

P (Female | Undergraduate) = P (Female ∩ Undergraduate)/P(Undergraduate)

=0.43/0.73 = 0.589

this is the answer.