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by sana.noor » Mon Aug 05, 2013 10:44 am
Tony's political science final exam consists of eight True/False questions. If Tony guesses on every question, what is the probability that he gets exactly seven questions right?

A) 1/32
B) 1/16
C) 1/8
D) 7/8
E) 31/32

OA is A
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Source: — Problem Solving |

by GMATGuruNY » Mon Aug 05, 2013 11:53 am
sana.noor wrote:Tony's political science final exam consists of eight True/False questions. If Tony guesses on every question, what is the probability that he gets exactly seven questions right?

A) 1/32
B) 1/16
C) 1/8
D) 7/8
E) 31/32

OA is A
P(exactly 7 right) = P(exactly 1 wrong).

P(exactly N times) = P(one way) * total possible ways.

One way:
One way to get exactly 1 wrong is to answer only the 1st question wrong.
P(WRRRRRRR) = 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/2�.

Total possible ways:
WRRRRRRR represents ONE WAY to answer exactly 1 question wrong.
To account for ALL OF THE WAYS to answer exactly 1 question wrong, the result above must be multiplied by the number of ways to arrange the letters WRRRRRRR.
Since W could appear in any of the 8 positions of the arrangement, the total number of ways to answer exactly 1 question wrong = 8.

Thus;
P(exactly 1 wrong) = (1/2�) * 8 = 1/32.

The correct answer is A.
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by [email protected] » Mon Aug 05, 2013 11:55 am
Hi sana.noor,

Since this is a probability question, we'll use the probability formula:

(Desired Outcomes)/(Total Outcomes)

The test has 8 True/False questions and Tony is guessing on each, so there are 2^8 possible outcomes = 256 possible outcomes

For Tony to get exactly 7 out of 8 correct, it can be ANY combo of 7, so we'll use the combination formula:

8c7 = 8!/[(7!)(1!) = 8 combos of seven correct answers

8/256 = 1/32


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