Question

A restaurant noted what type of food its customers purchased last week. Here are the results:

Burger

Fries

15%

55%

10%

20%

In this sample, are the events "burger" and "fries" mutually exclusive?

Answer 1

No, they are not mutually exclusive because a customer can purchase a burger and fries together.

Explanation:

Mutually exclusive events are events that cannot occur at the same time, e.g. I cannot sleep while running. In the case of a restaurant, you could consider purchasing pizza and burgers as mutually exclusive since most people would only purchase one of them (unless they eat a lot). But burgers and fries are not mutually exclusive because people can purchase them together.