Question 864702
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Tutor ikleyn has the same wrong answer to this problem as to the problem about the red and green balls.  If she would just look at her solutions and find the errors, she would not need to insist that all the other tutors who have responded to this and similar problems are wrong and she is right.<br>
For this problem she labels the earrings as S1, S2, G1, and G2, then writes out a list of 6 possible combinations of 2 of the earrings: (S1,S2), (S1,G1), (S1,G2), (S2,S1), (S2,G1),AND (S2,G2).  Then, since 2 of those 6 combinations contain both silver hoop earrings, she says the probability that both earrings are silver is 2/6, or 1/3.<br>
But her list of the 6 combinations is faulty.  (S1,S2) is the same combination as (S2,S1); and the combination (G1,G2) is missing from her list.<br>
So of the 6 correct possible combinations, only one contains both silver hoop earrings.<br>
And then the probability that both earrings are silver is 1/6.<br>