AP Statistics Chapter 5 - Probability: What Are The Chances? 5.1: Randomness, Probability and Simulation
AP Statistics Chapter 5 - Probability: What Are The Chances? 5.1: Randomness, Probability and Simulation
AP Statistics Chapter 5 - Probability: What Are The Chances? 5.1: Randomness, Probability and Simulation
Probability
The probability of any outcome of a chance process is a number between 0 and 1 that describes
the proportion of times the outcome would occur in a very long series of repetitions.
Simulation
The imitation of chance behavior, based on a model that accurately reflects the situation, is
called a simulation.
Sample Space
The sample space S of a chance process is the set of all possible outcomes.
Probability Models
Descriptions of chance behavior contain two parts:
A probability model is a description of some chance process that consists of two parts:
• a sample space S and
• a probability for each outcome.
For example: When a fair 6-sided die is rolled, the Sample Space is S = {1, 2, 3, ,4,5, 6}.
The probability for a fair die would include the probabilities of these outcomes, which are all the
same.
Outcome 1 2 3 4 5 6
Probability 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6 1/6
Event
An event is any collection of outcomes from some chance process. That is, an event is a subset
of the sample space. Events are usually designated by capital letters, like A, B, C, and so on.
For example: For the probability model above we might define event A = die roll is odd. The
elements of the sample space S that fits this event are {1, 3, 5}. The probability of the event A,
written as P(A) is the 3/6 or ½. So we would write P(A) = 0.5, in decimal form.
AP Statistics – Chapter 5 Notes: Probability: What are the Chances? Page 1 of 3
The Basic Rules of Probability
• For any event A, 0 ≤ P(A) ≤ 1.
• If S is the sample space in a probability model, P(S) = 1.
• In the case of equally likely outcomes,
number of outcomes corresponding to event A
P( A)
total number of outcomes in sample space
• Complement rule: P(A ) = 1 – P(A)
C
• Addition rule for mutually exclusive events: If A and B are mutually exclusive,
P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B). Also be familiar with the notation: 𝑷(𝑨 ∪ 𝑩).
For example: Using a deck of playing cards and drawing a card at random, the events A = card
is a King, and B = card is a Queen are mutually exclusive because a single card cannot be both a
King and a Queen. Thus we can calculate the probability of A or B as the sum of their individual
probabilities - P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B).
The complement Ac contains exactly the The events A and B are mutually exclusive
outcomes that are not in A. (disjoint) because they do not overlap. That
is, they have no outcomes in common.
Conditional Probability
The probability that one event happens given that another event is already known to have
happened is called a conditional probability.
Suppose we know that event A has happened. Then the probability that event B happens given
that event A has happened is denoted by P(B | A). The symbol “” is read as “given that,” so we
read P(B | A) as the probability that B occurs given that A has already occurred.
where P(B | A) is the conditional probability that event B occurs given that event A has already
occurred.