Question

For the 50 students in an art contest, there will be 1 prize for first-place, 1 prize for second-place, and 3 prizes for honorable mention. What is the probability of winning a prize?

Answer 1

Explanation:

there are 50 students and 5 prizes (1 + 1 + 3).

so, already in natural language we would say "there is 1 prize for every 10 students".

formally, remember the rule of probability : desired outcomes over total possible outcomes.

this is here

5/50 = 1/10 = 0.1

your can see it also this way :

if there was only 1 prize, each student would have a chance of 1/50 of winning.

now there are 5 prizes, which gives everybody 5 times the chance of winning. which is then 5×1/50 = 5/50 = 0.1