GCSE Foundation · grades 1–5 · 7.5% of marks
GCSE Foundation — Probability
Every probability statement a GCSE Foundation student may be asked is here; together they are 7.5% of the assessment. 8 statements make up probability here. Each has its own page with the specification wording, the common mistakes, and questions. The ground it covers runs through frequency of outcomes, tables and frequency trees, expected outcomes and fairness, relative frequency and the probability scale, probabilities of exhaustive events sum to one, empirical samples and sample size and sets, Venn diagrams and tree diagrams. Everything on this page is Foundation content, which means a Higher student needs it too — Higher is Foundation plus more, not instead of. With 50% AO1 and 50% across AO2 and AO3, fluency alone is not enough — the paper repeatedly asks what your answer means. The bulk of it sits comfortably on the non-calculator paper; a calculator quietly hides the gap until the exam.
- P1 — Frequency of outcomes, tables and frequency trees
- P2 — Expected outcomes and fairness
- P3 — Relative frequency and the probability scale
- P4 — Probabilities of exhaustive events sum to one
- P5 — Empirical samples and sample size
- P6 — Sets, Venn diagrams and tree diagrams
- P7 — Possibility spaces for single and combined events
- P8 — Independent and dependent combined events
Practise
The 8 DfE statements in probability at Foundation
Higher-only statements are not listed here; statements with a Higher-only part are marked and the part is quoted.
Related
Questions people ask
How much of the GCSE Foundation paper is probability?
7.5% of the total marks, and the three papers each carry an equal share of the qualification, so it is spread across all of them rather than concentrated in one.
How many topics are there in probability at GCSE Foundation?
8 DfE content statements, coded P1 to P8 within this area. Every question in the bank is tagged to one of them.
Is any probability content on this page Higher only?
No. Foundation pages only show statements a Foundation entry may be asked. The Higher-only probability material is on the GCSE Higher page for this area.
Can I use a calculator for probability questions?
Paper 1 is non-calculator; Papers 2 and 3 allow one. Of the 8 statements in this area, 4 are naturally non-calculator and 0 naturally calculator, with the rest workable either way — so practise both.
What kind of marks does probability carry?
The GCSE Foundation split is 50% AO1 (use and apply standard techniques), 25% AO2 (reason, interpret and communicate) and 25% AO3 (solve problems in and out of context). Questions in this area are set across all three.
Are these past paper questions?
No. Every question at /gcse-foundation is original, written to the DfE content statements and checked before it is published. We do not host past papers or mark schemes.