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The letters of the alphabet are written on flashcards and dropped into a bag. A flashcard is randomly selected, kept out of the bag, and then another flashcard is randomly selected. which product gives the probability that both cards have a vowel (a, e, i, o, or u) written on them? A. 5/26*4/26 B. 5/26*4/25 C. 5/26*5/25 D. 5/26* 5/26.

1 Answer

3 votes

First of all, as I told you a little while ago, here is the formula
that solves ALL probability problems. Memorize this:

Probability =
(number of different successful possibilities)
divided by
(total number of all possibilities).

How many cards are in the bag at the beginning ?
One with each letter of the alphabet. That's 26 .
So the total number of different possible results on the
first draw is 26 .

How many of them are 'successful' ?
A 'successful' card is one with a vowel (a, e, i, o, or u). That's 5 .
So the probability of pulling a vowel the first time is 5/26 .

Now, we're looking for the probability of pulling TWO vowels, without
replacing the first one. So what's the situation after the first one ?
If the first one is successful, then when you reach into the bag for
the second draw, there are only 25 total cards in the bag, and
only 4 vowels are left. So the probability of drawing a vowel the
second time is 4/25 .

The first one was 5/26 .
The second one was 4/25 .

The probability of both of them happening just like that is

(5/26) x (4/25) .

That looks like choice ' B ' to me.

User Ygram
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