Question

Mia is taking art and calculus courses on Mondays. She is late for the art class with probability 0.5 and late for the calculus class with probability 0.4. Suppose the two events are independent. What is the probability that Mia is on time to exactly one of the classes (write it up to first decimal place)?

Answer 1

0.5

Explanation:

Let the probability of being late for Art class be a = 0.5 and the probability of being on time for Art class be b = 1 - a = 0.5

Let the probability of being late for Calculus class be c = 0.4 and the probability of being on time for Calculus class be d = 1 - a = 0.6

Probability of being on time in exactly one of the classes = Probability of being ((on time for Art and late for Calculus) or (on time for Calculus and late for art))

= (b × c) + (d × a) = (0.5 × 0.4) + (0.6 × 0.5) = 0.2 + 0.3 = 0.5