Final answer:
The probability of choosing a card that is not a spade is the complement of the probability of choosing a spade, which is 3/4 or 75%. Thus, the correct answer is B) P(not spades).
Step-by-step explanation:
The probability of choosing a card that is not a spade from a standard deck of playing cards can be calculated as follows:
There are 13 cards in each suit (hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds), and a total of 52 cards in the deck. Since the events of choosing a heart (H) or a spade (S) are mutually exclusive (a card cannot be both a heart and a spade), the probability of drawing a spade is 13/52 or 1/4. Therefore, the probability of not drawing a spade would be the complement of the probability of drawing a spade, which is 1 - P(spades) = 1 - 1/4 = 3/4.
The correct answer to the student's question is B) P(not spades) since we are looking for the probability of an event that is the complement of drawing a spade. In other words, we're interested in the chance of selecting any card that is not a spade, which includes hearts, diamonds, and clubs.