Probability worksheet — GCSE Higher

1.A two-way table records 150 customers at a café. 90 of the customers bought a hot drink and the rest did not. 54 of the hot-drink customers also bought a cake. 21 of the customers who did not buy a hot drink bought a cake. Work out the percentage of all 150 customers who bought a cake.

2.A fair coin is flipped and a fair five-sided spinner, labelled 1 to 5, is spun. All the outcomes are listed as pairs, such as (H, 3). Work out the probability that the outcome is a tail and an odd number.

3.An ordinary pack of 52 playing cards contains 13 hearts. One card is taken at random from the pack. Work out the probability that the card is not a heart. Give your answer as a percentage.

4.A factory checked 400 items. A frequency tree splits them into 250 items made by machine A and 150 items made by machine B. On machine A's branch, 15 of the items were faulty. On machine B's branch, 5 of the items were faulty. One of the 400 items is picked at random. Work out the probability that it is faulty. Give your answer as a fraction in its simplest form.

5.A test for a medical condition is given to 1000 people. 50 of the people have the condition and 950 do not. The test is positive for 45 of the 50 people who have the condition, and it is also positive for 95 of the 950 people who do not have the condition. One of the people whose test is positive is picked at random. Work out the probability that this person has the condition.

6.A bag contains 4 red counters and 6 blue counters. A counter is taken at random, its colour noted, and it is put back in the bag before a second counter is taken at random. Work out the probability that the two counters are different colours. Give your answer as a fraction in its simplest form.

7.A bag contains 5 letter tiles spelling the word MATHS, with one letter on each tile. Two tiles are drawn at random, one after the other, without the first tile being put back. Work out the probability that both tiles drawn are consonants.

8.In Manchester the probability of rain on any day in November is taken to be 0.3, and whether it rains on one day is independent of whether it rains on the next. Work out the probability that it rains on both the 10th and the 11th of November.

9.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?

10.A charity fundraiser runs a game using a spinner with 5 equal sections numbered 1 to 5. A player wins a £4 prize if the spinner lands on 5, and wins nothing otherwise. It costs £1 to play, and the game is played 100 times during the fundraiser. Decide which statement correctly describes the game.

11.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.

12.Kwame flips a fair coin three times and writes down what it lands on each time. Work out the probability that it lands on heads all three times.

13.180 gardeners at an allotment were asked whether they grow vegetables organically. 100 of the gardeners are on the north plots. 64 of the north-plot gardeners grow organically. 30 of the south-plot gardeners do not grow organically. Work out how many south-plot gardeners grow organically.

14.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.

15.The probability that Leo wakes up before his alarm is 0.35. The probability that his younger sister wakes up before her alarm, independently of Leo, is 0.28. Work out the probability that neither of them wakes up before their alarm.