say there are 5 male undergraduates, 2 female undergrduates, 2 male graduates, and 2 female graduates. find the probability of selecting an undergraduate or a female? i thought it was (7+4)/11 but thats just one ...
Your error is because when you add the 7 undergraduates and the 4
females you are counting the 2 undergraduate females TWICE! You are
counting them once among the 7 undergraduates and again among the
4 females. Therefore you have to subtract those 2 once from the 7+4
to keep from counting them twice. Therefore you get = .
You can also make a chart:
-------------------------------------------
| grad | undergraduate || totals |
--------------------------------------------------
male | 2 | 5 || 7 |
--------------------------------------------------
female | 2 | 2 || 4 |
==================================================
totals | 4 | 7 || 11 |
You only want to count the red numbers which add up to 9,
So the probability is
Or you can use the formula that the other tutor used:
P(U or F) = P(U) + P(F) - P(U and F)
= + -
=
Edwin