AAPL wrote:Manhattan Prep
From a group of 5 managers (Joo, Kendra, Lee, Marnie, and Noomi), 2 people are randomly selected to attend a conference in Las Vegas. What is the probability that Marnie and Noomi are both selected?
A. 0.1
B. 0.2
C. 0.25
D. 0.4
E. 0.6
OA A
Our goal is to find P(M and N both selected)
There are two ways to approach this.
Method #1:
P(M and N both selected) = P(one of them is selected 1st AND the other selected 2nd)
= P(one of them is selected 1st) x P(the other selected 2nd)
= (2/5)(1/4)
= 1/10
= 0.1
Aside: P(one of them is selected 1st) = 2/5 because I'm allowing for either Marnie or Noomi to be selected first.
Method #2:
P(M and N both selected) = P(M selected 1st AND N selected 2nd
OR N selected 1st AND M selected 2nd)
= P(M selected 1st AND N selected 2nd)
+ P(N selected 1st AND M selected 2nd)
= (1/5)(1/4)
+ (1/5)(1/4)
= 1/20
+ 1/20
= 1/10
= 0.1
Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
