Probability worksheet — GCSE Foundation

1.A garden centre recorded 240 plant sales using a frequency tree. The first stage splits the sales into three types: shrubs, bedding plants and trees. 96 sales were shrubs, 114 were bedding plants and the rest were trees. Work out the probability that a sale chosen at random from these 240 was a tree.

2.A market stall sells umbrellas. Over the last 250 days, it rained on 70 of them. Using this as an estimate of the probability of rain, work out how many rainy days would be expected in the next 365 days.

3.A biased spinner is spun 40 times and lands on red 16 times. It is then spun a further 60 times and lands on red 21 times. Work out the best estimate of the probability that the spinner lands on red, using the results of all 100 spins together.

4.Priya spins a fair spinner with P(red) = 0.3, and separately flips a fair coin with P(heads) = 0.5. Using a tree diagram, work out the probability that she gets red AND heads.

5.A red fair dice and a blue fair dice are rolled together. Every outcome is listed as an ordered pair, red score then blue score. Work out the probability that the red score is less than the blue score.

6.The probability that the Hughes family go away during the summer holidays is 3/7. Work out the probability that they do not go away during the summer holidays.

7.A fair spinner has 8 equal sections: 5 are red and 3 are blue. Freya spins it twice, and each spin is independent of the other. Work out the probability that she gets one red and one blue in the two spins, in either order.

8.The probability that Priya scores with a netball shot is 3/4. She takes two shots, and the shots are independent. Work out the probability that she scores with her first shot but misses her second shot.

9.In a game, Zara says the probability of scoring is 3/8, the probability of missing is 5/12 and the probability of a rebound is 1/6, and that these are the only three outcomes. Is Zara correct that her three probabilities are valid?

10.A box contains counters that are silver, bronze or copper only. The probability that a counter taken at random is silver is 1/2 and the probability that it is bronze is 1/8. The box contains 64 counters in total. Work out the number of copper counters.

11.Ellie drops a bottle top and records whether it lands open end up. In her first 20 drops it lands open end up 13 times. She carries on, and after 200 drops in total it has landed open end up 84 times. Work out the best estimate of the probability that the bottle top lands open end up.

12.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.

13.A frequency tree records 320 calls to a helpline. The calls first split into calls about billing and calls about technical support. Of the technical support calls, the probability that a call was resolved on the first contact is 0.75. If 180 technical support calls were resolved on the first contact, work out how many calls were about billing.

14.A fair spinner has 6 equal sections, and 2 of the sections are coloured purple. The spinner is spun 180 times. Work out how many times you would expect it to land on purple.

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