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What is Probability and how to calculate it
![]() You will encounter many examples in your everyday life which deal with probability and chance. Although I hope you are not in the casino on a daily basis, I am sure you will agree with me that the games played in such an establishment are all based upon the probability of players to win. What is the chance for instance of a roulette ball to land on a red number? But probability is not bound to the walls of a casino. If you are hosting a party in your garden tomorrow, you want to know whether there is any chance it is going to rain or even thunder. If the probability of rain is high, it is likely to occur, you perhaps want to buy a tent. What is the chance of a pregnant women getting a daughter? Will that be impossible, likely, even chance or certain? finally, many maths questions involving probability will concern beads or counters. If I have 16 white counters and 18 black counters in a bag and I take one out at random, what is the chance of getting a white counter? What is the chance of not getting a white counter? And what is the chance of getting a red counter?
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When studying for probability, start by examining the following two maths activities about this important IGCSE and GCSE maths topic. The first maths video will discuss the language which you will encounter when solving these types of maths problems. Do yourself a big favour and look at it at least once. It is important that you have a good understanding of the words used in your IGCSE and GCSE maths exam paper. The first video will also introduce the probability scale to you. The second video will show you how to calculate the probability of an event happening. Although it is a relatively easy formula to remember, make sure your truly understand the formula. Then you will be able to successfully answer all probability questions on your IGCSE and GCSE maths exam. Makes sure to contact me if you remain to have any maths questions involving probability.
Example maths questions calculating Probability
In the previous video you have first of all learned some important language used in many maths questions involving probability. What is the chance of me winning the lottery tonight - likely, certain, impossible or very unlikely? What is the chance that it is going to rain tomorrow where you live - certain, very likely, unlikely, impossible or even chance? Make sure you can also place these words on a probability scale
Then you continued and learned in the second maths video a formula to calculate probability. The probability of an event happening equals to the amount of successes over the amount of possibilities. You will be able to use this maths formula in the following maths questions and also in your IGCSE and GCSE maths exam paper. So please start the next videos which will provide you with example questions involving probability. You will notice that most of these types of maths questions will involve dice, beads, counters, sweets and occasionally playing cards. The second video will emphasise on calculating he probability of an event not happening. Frequently you will be asked to do something similar on your IGCSE GCSE maths exam. If, after studying these maths activities, you still don't understand, then please do not hesitate to contact me. |
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What is Theoretical Probability and what is Experimental Probability
Finally I want you to look at the following maths video which will explain to you the difference between theoretical and experimental probability. By conducting a maths activity the two terms will make sense to you afterwards examining the video. Before looking at it I want you to answer the following question. If the theoretical probability of rolling a prime number with a fair dice is 0.5, how many prime numbers do you expect to record if you roll the dice 850 times? If you only have rolled 30 even numbers after rolling a dice 1000 times, do you think that dice is fair or biased? How many even numbers would you expect to have rolled after 1000 rolls?
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