Conditional Probability Practice
1. Consider the events A and B, where P(A) = 0.5, P(B) = 0.7 and P(A ∩ B) = 0.3.
The Venn diagram below shows the events A and B, and the probabilities p, q and r.
(a) Write down the value of
(i) p;
(ii) q;
(iii) r. (3)
(b) Find the value of P(A | B′). (2)
(c) Hence, or otherwise, show that the events A and B are
not independent. (1)
(Total 6 marks)
2. The diagram below shows the probabilities for events A
and B, with P(A′) = p.
(a) Write down the value of p. (1)
(b) Find P(B). (3)
(c) Find P(A′ | B). (3)
(Total 7 marks)
3. The letters of the word PROBABILITY are written on 11
cards as shown below.
Two cards are drawn at random without replacement.
Let A be the event the first card drawn is the letter A.
Let B be the event the second card drawn is the letter B.
(a) Find P(A). (1)
(b) Find P(B│A). (2)
(c) Find P(A ∩ B). (3)
(Total 6 marks)
4. In any given season, a soccer team plays 65 % of their games at home.
When the team plays at home, they win 83 % of their games.
When they play away from home, they win 26 % of their games.
The team plays one game.
(a) Find the probability that the team wins the game. (4)
(b) If the team does not win the game, find the probability that the game was played at home. (4)
(Total 8 marks)
IB Questionbank Maths SL 1
Conditional Probability Practice
5. In a class of 100 boys, 55 boys play football and 75 boys play rugby. Each boy must play at least one
sport from football and rugby.
(a) (i) Find the number of boys who play both sports.
(ii) Write down the number of boys who play only rugby. (3)
(b) One boy is selected at random.
(i) Find the probability that he plays only one sport.
(ii) Given that the boy selected plays only one sport, find the probability that he plays rugby. (4)
Let A be the event that a boy plays football and B be the event that a boy plays rugby.
(c) Explain why A and B are not mutually exclusive. (2)
(d) Show that A and B are not independent. (3)
(Total 12 marks)
6. There are 20 students in a classroom. Each student plays only one sport. The table below gives their
sport and gender.
Football Tennis Hockey
Female 5 3 3
Male 4 2 3
(a) One student is selected at random.
(i) Calculate the probability that the student is a male or is a tennis player.
(ii) Given that the student selected is female, calculate the probability that the student does
not play football. (4)
(b) Two students are selected at random. Calculate the probability that neither student plays
football. (3)
(Total 7 marks)
7. Bag A contains 2 red balls and 3 green balls. Two balls are chosen at random from the bag without
replacement. Let X denote the number of red balls chosen. The following table shows the probability
distribution for X.
X 0 1 2
3 6 1
P(X = x)
10 10 10
(a) Calculate E(X), the mean number of red balls chosen. (3)
Bag B contains 4 red balls and 2 green balls. Two balls are chosen at random from bag B.
(b) (i) Draw a tree diagram to represent the above information, including the probability of each event.
(ii) Hence find the probability distribution for Y, where Y is the number of red balls chosen. (8)
A standard die with six faces is rolled. If a 1 or 6 is obtained, two balls are chosen from bag A,
otherwise two balls are chosen from bag B.
(c) Calculate the probability that two red balls are chosen. (5)
(d) Given that two red balls are obtained, find the conditional probability that a 1 or 6 was rolled on
the die. (3)
(Total 19 marks)
2 1 7
8. Consider the events A and B, where P(A) = , P(B′) = and P(A ∪ B) = .
5 4 8
(a) Write down P(B).
(b) Find P(A ∩ B).
(c) Find P(A | B).
(Total 6 marks)
IB Questionbank Maths SL 2
