Question

There are 4 red, 6 green, and 5 yellow pencils in a jar. Once a pencil is selected, it is not replaced. Find the probability. Give your answer as a fraction in simplest form, a decimal to the nearest hundredth, and the nearest whole percent. P( red and then yellow)

Answer 1

2/21 or 9.52%

Explanation:

The first thing is to calculate the total number of pencils.

4 + 6 + 5 = 15

Which means that in total there are 15 pencils.

Now the probability of drawing a red pencil is then:

4/15

Without that red pencil, then we have one less pencil in general, that is, 14, so the probability of drawing a yellow is:

5/14

The final probability would then be:

4/15 * 5/14 = 20/210 = 2/21

Now that equals 0.0952, which means that the probability is 9.52%