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A question on Probability (1 Viewer)

goobi

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A girl has 5 tickets in a raffle in which there are 2 prizes and 40 tickets sold. Find the probability of her winning a prize.

So, I'm just wondering whether "winning a prize" actually means "winning exactly one prize" or "winning at least one prize".

Thanks for any help!
 

jamesfirst

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exactly means exactly 1 prize

at least means at least 1 prize... so can be 2 3 .............. prizes
 

goobi

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So which one, "winning exactly one prize" or "winning at least one prize", do you think is what the question asking for?
 

goobi

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Thanks...but why would it be "winning at least one prize"? If so, it implies that the event "winning all 2 prizes" is a subset of "winning a prize" as said in the question, which I think is a bit literally contradicting...
 
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powlmao

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A girl has 5 tickets in a raffle in which there are 2 prizes and 40 tickets sold. Find the probability of her winning a prize.

So, I'm just wondering whether "winning a prize" actually means "winning exactly one prize" or "winning at least one prize".

Thanks for any help!
At least one prize
 

powlmao

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Thanks...but why would it be "winning at least one prize"? If so, it implies that the event "winning all 2 prizes" is a subset of "winning one prize" as said in the question, which I think is a bit literally contradicting...
Some maths questions are really badly explained sometimes.
 

goobi

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Some maths questions are really badly explained sometimes.
I'm really afraid of the presence of this type of question in the HSC and the trial as I think I'm a bit disadvantaged for English being my second language...
 

powlmao

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I'm really afraid of the presence of this type of question in the HSC and the trial as I think I'm a bit disadvantaged for English being my second language...
I believe most questions are really easy to understand. I have seen past HSC papers and all the questions are quite simple.


What does the answer say is the correct one?
 

goobi

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The suggested answer is found by "1 - P(winning no prize)", so the solution assumes that "winning a prize" implies "winning at least one prize".
 

kooliskool

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I can understand how you feel, if the hsc question is vague, it's hard to answer what they want if you don't understand the question. But keep this in mind, there are a board of people whose job is to design the paper so that no matter how you read it, there is only one meaning out of it. Whereas the textbook only has a few or sometimes only one person, so don't worry.
 

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