Probability worksheet — GCSE Foundation

1.Two fair coins are thrown together 400 times. Work out how many of the 400 throws you would expect to give one head and one tail.

2.The probability that Amelia's bus is late on a school morning is 9/10. Write this probability as a percentage.

3.Two ordinary fair dice are rolled. Work out the probability that both dice show the same score.

4.A six-sided dice is rolled 12 times. It lands on a six 4 times. Erin says that the dice must be biased. Which of these is the best comment on Erin's statement?

5.A fair coin is flipped again and again. After the first 10 flips there have been 7 heads. After 1000 flips there have been 528 heads. Which statement best describes what these results show?

6.A student is estimating the probability that a spinner lands on red. In her first 85 spins it landed on red 34 times. She then spins it 165 more times, and in those it lands on red 58 times. Work out the best estimate of the probability of red from all 250 spins. Give your answer as a decimal, correct to 3 decimal places.

7.A school recorded what 60 students chose for lunch. 35 of the students are in Year 10 and the rest are in Year 11. 20 of the Year 10 students chose a sandwich and 9 of the Year 11 students chose a sandwich. Everyone else chose a hot meal. Work out how many Year 11 students chose a hot meal.

8.The universal set is {1, 2, 3, ..., 15}. A = {multiples of 3}. Work out n(A′), the number of elements not in A.

9.On the probability scale from 0 (impossible) to 1 (certain), evens is exactly halfway. An event is 3/10 more likely than evens. Work out the probability of that event, giving your answer as a decimal.

10.A bag contains 3 red counters, 2 blue counters and 2 green counters. One counter is taken at random from the bag. Work out the probability that the counter is red.

11.The probability that a seed fails to germinate is 1/5. Three seeds are planted independently. Work out the probability that at least one of the three seeds germinates.

12.Five balls numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are in a bag. Two of them are taken out together at random. Work out the probability that the two numbers on them add up to more than 7.

13.A basketball player takes two free throws, and the throws are independent. The probability of scoring on each throw is 0.6, and the probability of missing is 0.4. Work out the probability that she scores exactly one of the two throws.

14.A basketball player has a free-throw success probability of 0.75. She wants to expect to score 60 successful free throws. Work out how many free throws she needs to attempt.

15.A = {factors of 12} and B = {factors of 18}. Work out n(A ∩ B), the number of elements in both sets.