Question

A certain family consists of a mother, father, and 4 girls. The woman is pregnant with a fifth child. What is the probability that the 5th child is agirl? Before the first birth, what was the probability that the woman would give birth to 5 girls in a row?

Answer 1

The probability that the 5th child is a girl = 1/2

Before the first birth, the probability that the woman would give birth to 5 girls in a row = 0.03125

Step - by - Step expalanation

What to find?

• The probability that the 5th child is a girl.

,

• Before the first birth, the probability that the woman would give birth to 5 girls in a row.

Probability = required outcome / all possible outcome.

For the first part of the question, the 5th child could either be a boy or girl.

So, all possible outcome = 2 and the required outcome = 1

Hence, the probability that the fifth child is a girl = 1/2

For the second part of the question,

Before, the first birth, the probabilty that the woman would give birth to 5 girls in a row will simply =(probability of given birth to a girl)^no. of times she will give birth.

That is;

`((1)/(2))^5`

`=(0.5)^5`

`=0.03125`