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The local evil geometry teacher has challenged your team to a “spinning duel.” She shows you the spinner below (the angle of the central arc in the section A is 120 degrees) and explains the game.

“Each player spins the spinner twice in his or her turn. If the letters match on those two spins, Player One gets 2 points. If the letters are different, Player Two gets 3 points. First person to get 20 points wins. Which player do you expect to win the game. How many turns before that player does.

The local evil geometry teacher has challenged your team to a “spinning duel.” She-example-1

2 Answers

5 votes

Final answer:

In this game, each player spins the spinner twice in their turn to earn points. We can determine the expected winner by calculating the probability of getting a match and the probability of getting different letters. The expected number of turns can be found using a geometric series.

Step-by-step explanation:

In this game, each player spins the spinner twice in their turn. If the letters on the two spins match, Player One gets 2 points. If the letters are different, Player Two gets 3 points. The first person to reach 20 points wins. To determine which player is expected to win, we need to calculate the probability of getting a match on two spins and the probability of getting different letters on two spins.

The probability of getting a match on two spins is calculated by multiplying the probability of getting a specific letter on the first spin (1/6) by the probability of getting the same letter on the second spin (1/6). This gives us a probability of 1/36. The probability of getting different letters on two spins is calculated by subtracting the probability of getting a match (1/36) from 1, which gives us 35/36.

To determine the expected number of turns before a player wins, we can set up a geometric series. Let x be the expected number of turns. The probability of Player One winning on the first turn is 1/36, and the probability of Player One winning on any other turn is (35/36)^(2x-1) * (1/36). The expected number of turns can be calculated using the formula: x = 1 * (1/36) + x * (35/36)^(2x-1) * (1/36). By solving this equation, we can find the value of x.

User Effata
by
4.6k points
7 votes

Answer: player 2 in 4 turns

Step-by-step explanation:

User OkonX
by
5.6k points
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