Question

Imagine that James has been bowling for over 10 years and never gets any better or any worse. The probability that he will bowl a strike on any attempt of rolling a bowling ball stays at a constant 55%. During a particular bowling game, what is the probability that James will not bowl a strike until his fourth attempt?

Answer 1

5.01%

Explanation:

In order to calculate a sequence of events you need to multiply the probability of each event happening with one another in decimal form. In this scenario, the probability of James bowling a strike is 55% meaning that the probability of James NOT bowling a strike is 45%. We want to know the probability of James NOT bowling a strike for 3 attempts and then bowling a strike on his fourth attempt. We first turn these probabilities into decimal form by dividing them by 100. And then multiply...

55 / 100 = 0.55

45 / 100 = 0.45

0.45 * 0.45 * 0.45 * 0.55 = 0.05011875

Multiply by 100 to get percentage.

0.05011875 * 100 = 5.01%